Seek
by cloverhoney
Summary: SasuSaku. Sakura disappears to take a lifelong mission in exchange for Sasuke's post-war acquittal. To give her the upper hand over her new targets, the world must believe Sakura is dead and gone - but that couldn't be further from the truth. Sakura seeks the power she needs in Shikkotsu forest, while Sasuke seeks the truth about her death, and Kakashi tries to keep her secret.
1. pardon

_A/N: Welcome to my first fic! For context, this story begins a few months after the end of the war; everyone is back in Konoha. Thanks for taking the time to read!_

* * *

When there was a knock at his door around ten at night, Sasuke answered it, with both curiosity and annoyance plain on his face. There was only one person in the village who would visit him this late at night without being invited, and he was not in the mood for ramen or bright orange anything.

He was surprised to see that it was not Naruto standing at his doorstep, but Sakura. She was dressed in her green flak vest and black pants, hair tied back and headband crowning her scalp. He raised his eyebrows at her, as if to ask: _you?_

"Can I come in?" she murmured, dispensing with formalities; while he did not require them from her, he had come to expect them. Something was not right.  
He stood aside, opening the door wider to allow her to pass. She ducked her head as she passed him, a sign of the deference he was used to; the smell of her shampoo filled his mind for a moment. But just for a moment.

"You can sit anywhere," he invited quietly, gesturing to the couches in his living room. The only time he felt that his living situation was inadequate was when she was standing in his one-bedroom apartment. It was the best he could do, post-war, but he felt the austerity of the place more than ever when she was in it.

She sat, and he could sense the tension in her movements. He sat across the coffee table from her in a too-soft chair he had been gifted by Kakashi.

"I was in council meetings all day." She folded her hands in her lap. "Regarding you."

He raised his eyebrows again, trying to appear uninterested. He knew that both she and Kakashi were on the council regarding his sentencing; Naruto was not invited based on many reasons, namely that he could not be level headed for more than thirty seconds, and many of the council had their own litany of misgivings regarding him and his role in the war.

But Kakashi was hokage, even if he hadn't been for long, and Sakura, being head of the hospital and only member of the team the council liked, had been inducted into his hearing. He felt infinitely better knowing they were there, although he did not tell either of them this. While she kept him updated, a visit this late was out of the ordinary.

"You've been completely pardoned," Sakura said, with a small smile that didn't look completely right.

"I have?" he asked, surprised.

"No solo missions or leaving the village unsupervised for the next 18 months. And they wanted me to tell you, and specifically Naruto, that he doesn't count as supervision. Jonins only, and don't go trying to find any loopholes."

He sat back in his chair, the unexpected news leaving him at a loss for words. It had been months of deliberation, and to hear Sakura tell it, mostly arguing that got nowhere, since she and Kakashi were completely immoveable in favor of a complete pardon, and several of the council members were in favor of banishment, imprisonment, or execution. He'd not known they were so close to a decision.

"If the first 18 months goes well, then all restrictions will be lifted, and you can come and go as you please. We know that we couldn't really make you adhere to that, of course. So it's more of a good faith thing."

"Of course," he nodded. Hesitantly, he asked, "Anything else?"

Her smile became more self-satisfied. "No. That's all."

He did not wonder why she looked proud of herself. She knew, better than anyone, how bothered and distracted he had been by the whole ordeal. She had seen through his impatience for the desperate worry it was, and she told him everything that was on the table, from death or banishment to community service in the civilian sector. And she promised she would try for him, but made no other commitments; however, Sasuke knew that Sakura's definition of "trying" was relentless and difficult to say no to.

"So… that's it then," he ventured.

"That's it. It's over."

Sasuke smiled, and at that, Sakura looked like she was about to cry. It was fleeting enough that he knew he imagined it, but it still bothered him.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked, gesturing to her flak vest and headband.

"Mission. Gonna be a long one," she said quietly, trying to hide the trembling in her hands. Despite the good news, there was an overwhelming feeling that something was very wrong.

"Sakura," he said, and she looked up at him. "What's going on?"

"Will you promise me something?"

He frowned. That was not an answer.

"You're going to try to be happy, right? You're going to take this chance to have a real life, a happy one?" She looked around. "Maybe get a painting or some throw pillows?"

He nodded slowly, studying her. He knew her well, better after these few months of seeing her nearly daily in some aspect or another. She was not acting like herself. This was not the sort of question she usually asked him.

"Tell me," he insisted.

She locked eyes with him, and something, some sort of strength, returned to her. "It's nothing. I'm just tired. But I have to get going."

She stood, and he mirrored her, still frowning.

At the door, Sakura turned abruptly, her face inches from his, and reached out, her fingers landing gently on his face for a moment. Her hand traced from his ear to his jaw before dropping back to her side.

And then she left. He did not see her again.


	2. remember me

Sakura stood at the threshold of Konoha, her back turned to the village. Although she had frequently gone beyond the gates past nightfall, the woods seemed particularly black tonight, ready to swallow her whole. She looked at the moon, trying to approximate the time; late. He was always late.

"Sorry," a voice behind her said. She turned to see a sheepish Kakashi, scratching his head in embarrassment. "I fell asleep."

"That's okay. Thanks for coming," she murmured, her voice not coming out right.

To her surprise, Kakashi reached for her, pulling her against the rough fabric of his vest. She instinctively pressed her cheek against him, listening for a heartbeat. For once, she appreciated the solidness of her mentor; for all of the times he hadn't been there for her, he was here now. And now was when it mattered.

"You were always my best student."

"Not really," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears.

"Favorite student, at least."

"Still not really." She smiled, knowing that this was likely the last friendly physical contact she would have in her life. She tried to engrave the feeling on her skin, the warmth, the comfort, the gentle rise and fall of the chest.

"You don't have to do this, Sakura. It isn't too late. We can talk to the council again."

"You know what happens if I don't go. What happens to... him." Sakura couldn't bring herself to say his name. She felt it belonged to moments better left in memories; his name was an incantation for calling weakness into her heart and expelling the breath from her lungs. It was the title of her betrayal; she felt she had no right to say it out loud, to give it to the cold, ruthless air.

"He'd hate that you're doing this."

She pulled away, knowing that if she didn't go now, she never would. "He won't know."

Kakashi sighed; he kept his hands on both of her shoulders. "I'm proud of you. This isn't just for your team. It's to keep the whole village safe."

She nodded, not sure what to say, since she wasn't sure how much of that was true. "Will I see you again?"

"Of course. I'll be around. I know how to get in touch with you."

This was her lifeline, that some part of her life was still going to exist. That there would be someone from when she was real to remind her of who she used to be, where she used to live, what she used to think was important.

"I should go," she whispered, and her hands began to tremble. Her breathing became shallow, threatening to send her into hyperventilations.

Kakashi looked at her sympathetically, and dropped his hands from her shoulders. "Just start running. And don't stop until you can't take another step."

"Take care of them," she pleaded. "Like I would. Don't let them forget about me. Don't let them forget that I love them."

"I won't," Kakashi vowed. "They wouldn't forget anyway."

"Okay. I'm going." She straightened her spine and faced the forest.

"You're doing the right thing."

She smiled at him, but said nothing. She took one last look at him, one last look at her village, and then she took a step past the threshold and did not stop. She did not look back to see if Kakashi lingered. She did not look back to see her home fading behind her. She did not look back for a long time.


	3. empty grave

Three months later, Sakura was dead. Or that was the narrative the council was posed to disperse, starting today.

The deliberations had seemed to be getting nowhere for months. Sasuke was an undisputed war criminal. He murdered Danzo, betrayed the village, colluded with sworn enemies, tried to kill the Kages - and that was just the tip of the iceberg. For anyone else, this would have been a no-questions-asked death sentence. Considering the circumstances, a few of the elders, the soft ones, had been willing to consider banishment instead, thinking they were being merciful. Kakashi had wondered how they thought they were going to enforce either of those punishments, but he kept his mouth shut, letting them prattle.

The elders had not counted on Haruno Sakura sitting primly at the table and demanding a full pardon. Kakashi assumed the girl had been invited to participate as a sort of publicity stunt, to give the appearance that he had an advocate on the council and was still banished. They also thought that this child would not dare contradict her venerable elders.

But she had leveraged everything, from her status in Suna and her role in the war to her position as the best healer in the village. She threatened the eldest members of the council with the most conviction Kakashi had ever seen. She even threatened him (her favorite sensei!) when he suggested a stint grading papers in the civilian children's school. She would settle for nothing less than a full pardon. He followed her lead, of course, throwing his new political weight where he could.

It was his first experience with how limited the Hokage's power was. He was not free to act unilaterally. In fact, it felt that all he was allowed to do was announce the decisions of the elders as if they were his own. He was still a new leader, considered provisional in ways Tsunade never had to contend with. Many people still remembered the other war, the one years and years before, the battlefield where Kakashi had grown up; then a new war, when the dust had hardly settled on the old one. Nobody wanted a military dictator anymore. People were unsettled, angry, and scared. Democracy became the new buzz word. In acquiescence, the council's powers had been widened; the Hokage was no longer an autocrat. No one person held sole conservatorship of Konoha. Decisions required votes, approvals, discussions. There was talk of elections, sometime further down the road when the village wasn't in such horrible disrepair. Kakashi felt that he was barely a figurehead. The council had gobbled up their new power, contrarian to the point he suspected it came out of spite. Anything he wanted, they unanimously rejected.

Then, suddenly, the council was willing to make a deal. They needed a dead shinobi, someone no one saw coming, to clean up Sasuke's messes. Two Konoha ninja had died going after Orochimaru's experiments that Sasuke had released and left alive, and they were not willing to sacrifice anyone else over such a traitorous war criminal's mistakes. The mutants were organizing, recruiting people displaced and disenchanted by the war. The other villages said it was Konoha's fault and Konoha's problem to fix; they were demanding action.

So they proposed that she become their secret weapon, living in solitude hundreds of miles away, traveling to eradicate targets as needed. And in return, they would give Sasuke a complete pardon with 18 months of supervised missions, and no other restrictions. Otherwise, banishment or death.

But if she were to accept, the terms were dire: Haruno Sakura could exist no more. The whole village, country, and world would have to believe she was dead. If word got out that it was her picking off the experiments, they would know exactly what to plan for: super strength, regeneration, taijutsu. Better they never even thought to plan for a dead ninja.

And she had done it willingly. She had volunteered. Of course, the terms of the deal were too extreme for her to refuse. They had been made especially to convince her to leave, and she knew it. Kakashi had begged the council for another option, had begged her to let him handle it. Neither had been successful. The council wanted to hurt her for her defiance, wanted to destabilize team seven, strip Sasuke of any chance he had of assimilation. Without her, he remained an outcast, and they knew it. She carted him to outdoor markets and fairs, forced people to get used to him. Kakashi had no time to take his students on field trips, Naruto had no tact, and Sasuke had no one else.

And it might keep the kyuubi in check for a year or two more. Remind Naruto, again, how fragile the lives of those he loves are. Discourage recklessness, encourage quiet mourning, staying close to home, close to the quiet and stable Hinata. Tethered and afraid. Kakashi had suspected from the get-go this reaction from Naruto might be wishful thinking on the council's part. He didn't disabuse them of the notion.

All of this while successfully completing what was, admittedly, an important and prolonged mission. Kakashi wondered which of their detestable heads had come up with this idea. He'd like to see that head roll.

This was what Kakashi remembered as he sat in his office, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, a headache rolling around his brain. He had slept very poorly the night before, which was unusual of him; he suspected he did not have enough of a conscience left to keep him up at night. But today had been weighing heavily on his mind for months. Also, he did not like having an office. It seemed like nothing but an official place for bad news.

The doors opened and in bounded his students. Well, one student bounded in; the other followed quietly, shutting the door behind him.

"What's up, sensei?" Naruto beamed, plopping into a chair. "New mission? I'm in charge? We'll take it."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and sat as well, crossing his arms. "You're not in charge."

"Yes I am. Council said. Right, Kakashi?" Naruto looked at Kakashi expectantly, eyebrows raised.

Kakashi sighed, clasping his hands on the desk in front of him. Better to rip the bandage off. "This isn't about a mission. It's about Sakura."

Sasuke leaned forward, nearly imperceptibly; his frown deepened. Naruto sat up straighter. "What happened? Do we need to go get her? Why was she on a solo mission in the first place?"

"No. You don't need to go get her."

"What happened?" Sasuke asked sharply, his eyes narrowing.

Kakashi sighed again, looking at both of his students, hoping to remember them this way. Then he took a deep breath and recited what he had practiced in front of the mirror. "She's dead. Her remains were recovered two days ago. I just heard this morning. I'm sorry."

The following silence hurt. He could almost hear their worlds crashing around them, he could see the shock setting in. He knew the feeling; knew it twice, for each of his teammates that had died.

"You're lying," Sasuke said quietly. Kakashi could see in his eyes that he had no real reason to believe this other than the sheer insurmountability of the alternative.

"I'm not," Kakashi said firmly, and Sasuke's eyes tightened.

"You can bring her back," Naruto said, and there was a tinge to his voice that set Kakashi on edge; it felt like his voice had turned red. "Like Chiyo-sama did for Gaara. You can use the fox's chakra."

"That takes more than chakra, Naruto," Kakashi said quietly. "It's a life for a life. And it wouldn't work in this case."

"So find someone who's almost dead anyway! Or old! You have to bring her back, she has to be with us! We've only all been together for a few months!"

"Even if we could find someone willing, Naruto, it wouldn't work."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"For that jutsu to work, the body has to be largely intact," Kakashi said gently. He had been prepared for this request. The council had fed him the official story with every possible question answered.

Sasuke looked sick; Naruto looked floored. "What do you mean, intact?"

Kakashi didn't answer, largely for Sasuke's sake; the boy looked on the verge of vomiting.

He surprised Kakashi by speaking.

"Who killed her?" Sasuke murmured, and his voice didn't sound like his; it sounded like a voice rattling around an empty hallway.

Kakashi shrugged. "Whoever it was, she took them with her. She didn't go down easy. There's no revenge to be taken. No one to punish."

Naruto pushed his face into his hands. Sasuke did nothing but stare blankly.

"They're carving her name on the stone today," Kakashi said quietly. "You should both be there."

She had specifically told him that she didn't want her name carved on the hero's monument. He had specifically ignored her; dead or not, she had sacrificed herself for the village.

The boys did not move for minutes that seemed like hours. He let them sit.

Finally, suddenly, Sasuke stood, his chair toppling to the floor, and he stalked out of the room. After a few beats, Naruto followed him silently, leaving Kakashi alone in his office.

He had done a lot of hateful things in his life. But this was the worst.

That night, in Sasuke's apartment, a single throw pillow on a lonely couch was consumed by black flames.


	4. bluebells

More than anything, Sasuke remembers the day she didn't come back. It was no secret to anyone that all his life was was a collection of bad memories, self-made and otherwise. For some reason, this was the only one that somehow became fresher every day.

The day she didn't come back. She'd had many of those days of her own - days when Sasuke didn't return. Most of her childhood, in fact, had been spent on days when Sasuke didn't come back. He hadn't thought of her then. She, and the rest of his team, had flitted across his mind occasionally, once in a blue moon, and he'd waved them off as the distractions they were.

But this was different. This wasn't hoping against hope for a lost friend. This was a ninja leaving on a standard mission with years of training behind her. This was a woman doing her job. But then it turned into her missing a deadline. And then it led to a recovery team coming up empty handed. Then it was sitting in Kakashi's office, hearing that she was dead. And then it was ashes scattered on a hillside and a hundred people who would never be the same.

That day, Sasuke hadn't gone to the gate to wait for her, but he had kept it in the back of his mind that it was the day she was supposed to be coming home. He would see her eventually - at the market, the training grounds, the hospital. He might not seek her out, but if he knew she was going to the training grounds in the morning, he wouldn't necessarily avoid the place. If he needed a cut looked at, he might wait the extra hour until he knew her hospital shift began. And when she inevitably nearly broke his door down trying to knock, he would not pretend that he wasn't home.

But the sun went down that day, and those who had gone to the gate to wait for her went home, unconcerned. Missions often ended up taking a day or two longer. But Sasuke had been undeniably frustrated, a little bit worried, and had not slept well that night. From the few missions she'd been on since the end of the war, she had never been late before, not without sending a scroll ahead, and not without someone making sure that Sasuke knew she'd sent a scroll, which he pretended not to care about.

Still, all this time later, not a day went by that her grave sat in solitude. Hinata came to clean the white marble. Kakashi would lie in the grass and read. Lee would tell stories to the air, as if she could hear him. Naruto came, too, although not as often. He would just stand and stare. He felt nearly as responsible as Sasuke.

Yamanaka Ino would lay flowers, still, after so long. Bluebells and sweet peas. And cherry blossoms. Once she'd told him what they meant. Bluebells meant grateful, she'd explained, tears welling in her eyes. Sweet pea flowers meant goodbye. And cherry blossoms meant kind and gentle. She'd had to turn away so that Sasuke wouldn't see the tears freely spill down her face. He'd pretended not to notice. The first day that she didn't come back was hard. And all of the days since then had not gotten any easier.


	5. white snow red

After leaving Konoha, it had taken her three months to reach Frost Country, and another week after that to get to the little hut in the mountains of Shimogakure that the elders had told her would be her new quarters for the foreseeable future.

 _Hut_ was perhaps too strong a word. _House_ was too generous. So she settled on calling her meager accommodations a _hideout -_ and resolved to never call it _home._

Inside, the main room held a wood stove, a rickety table that possibly once had four legs, and a single chair. The bedroom held nothing but a mattress and a graying blanket. The previous occupant had left behind a few logs for the wood stove, enough for a few nights, and nothing else.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Sakura crinkled her nose; they had left behind the smell. The austerity of the place had reminded her of Sasuke's bare apartment, but the similarities ended there. At least he kept his place clean. He had always been so neat and tidy, keeping things in their assigned spaces, absentmindedly organizing things in his kitchen while she sat on his couch, lecturing him about just letting his arm heal before he got into any more tussles with Naruto, and couldn't they just get along, he'd only been home for a few weeks….

The errant thought of the man she loved lodged in her heart like a splinter. Months back, she had decided that she was going to push all thoughts of him out of her head; to try to forget him, like he undoubtedly was forgetting her. But it was futile. Her thoughts of him were carved on the walls of her veins, imprinted into her blood cells, woven into her DNA. She angrily wiped away the tears that had begun to sting the corners of her eyes and continued her search of the apartment.

The only other thing in the entire structure was an unmarked scroll sitting on the derelict table, with plain black edges. She approached it slowly and held it in her hands for a moment, running her thumb over the smooth paper.

After a few beats, she sighed and peeled it open.

Inside was a map of the Hidden Cloud, with a red X over a mountain range and a name: Kano. Next to the name, in black ink, someone had scribbled _civilians killed: 28._ And that was all. She turned the scroll over, looking for more information, but there was nothing. She'd been hoping for more to go on than a name and a kill count, but then again, she had been hoping for a lot of things. Disappointment was the flavor of the month. _Of the rest of your life,_ a tiny voice squeaked in the back of her mind. She waved it away with a frown, running a finger over her target's name.

So she gave herself two days of rest and planning in her little cabin, molding what little information she knew of the curse mark and the geography of Sky country into something that resembled a strategy, which consisted of nothing more than "find out who and where and then punch him really hard, I guess." And then she set back out into the snow, carefully tucking her pants into her boots and covering her tracks behind her - although she couldn't imagine anyone would _want_ to find this place, better safe than sorry.

Cloud was over a week away by foot, and reaching his hideout was sure to be no walk in the park. She didn't have much experience with mountainous terrain, although she'd traversed quite a few in her exodus from Konoha, and disliked it immensely. She could expect no home court advantage.

On her journey, she tried to collect more information. A single name was hardly enough to march into an assassination with. So she had turned her hair and eyes brown with a henge, discarded her usual red garb for simple civilian clothing, and tucked her Konoha headband into her backpack. Then she had ventured into the villages along the way to see if there had been rumors of any men or women with strange seal marks terrorizing locals or recruiting for any uprisings.

Much to her chagrin, but not to her surprise, no one was willing to talk to her. The war was still fresh in people's minds, but beginning to fester. Tales of the Fourth Hokage's son and the last Uchiha defeating a god to rescue everyone from coffin-like cocoons had dissipated and given way to the dull settle of lifelong mourning. Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, children - everyone was missing someone.

Or something. The injured crowded the streets, and many were missing a leg, or an arm, or a hand. The smell of decay was overwhelming. She could see how easy it would be to sow the seeds of distrust from these people's pain, and from there begin to turn people against each other. People would frown at her if she got too close to them, and ignore her if she tried to speak.

Finally, she stopped at the small town at the base of the mountain range that had been marked on her map. This was as far as she knew to come; her attempts at gathering information thus far had been more or less fruitless, and her prospects promised only to worsen. So she paid for a room in an inn, threw her bag at the wall in frustration, and fell asleep to dreams of a home she would never know again and a man with black hair and mismatched eyes that she would never really know at all.

As she walked through the market the next morning, she kept her ears alert for any mention of something might help her. _Orochimaru. Cursed seal. Kano._ But the townspeople patronizing the stalls were all unusually reticent, for a Saturday morning marketplace. They somberly paid for their wares and walked home, heads down. This place was stricken with the same affliction as all of the other villages she had passed through: festering grief and clouded, cold malcontent. But she pushed her sympathy for these people out of her heart; she had a mission. And all she needed was _one. One_ person brave enough, or dumb enough, to talk to her.

And she did find one, but not through nonexistent whispers in the market. A young woman sat propped against a wall, roots for sale laid out on a mat in front of her and a dirty brown bandage stained with old blood wrapped around her right arm. Sakura's heart twinged in pity; her parents had always told her that her tenderness would get the best of her, someday.

Sakura knelt in front of her, turning a root over with her fingers.

"What kind of root is this?"

"Don't know. It's edible." The woman shrugged, cringing with pain as her arm moved.

"It looks like a willow root. Good for poultices," Sakura said, glancing at the wounded arm. "For inflammation."

"Are you going to buy it or not?" She narrowed her eyes. "I don't care what you do with it."

"I'll buy two." Sakura dug into her bag for a few coins, and handed them to the woman, gathering the soft roots silently and shoving them in her bag. Her tongue was nearly jumping out of her mouth, but she knew the look in the girl's eyes: pain, fear, distrust. Anger.

"I'm a healer," Sakura said hesitantly.

"Good for you."

"I could heal your arm," she offered. "It wouldn't take long."

"Do I look like I have money for a healer?" the woman snorted. "I'm selling roots on the street."

"I meant for free."

"I don't need charity from strangers."

 _Yes you do._ Sakura thought dryly. "For the roots then. It could be infected - the sepsis will kill you."

The woman squinted at the rest of her roots. "What's sepsis?"

"When your blood gets infected," Sakura shrugged. "And from there, an infection can get anywhere."

"And you could do it fast?"

"Less than five minutes."

"Fine." The woman stuck out her arm. "For the roots."

Sakura smiled and begun to unwrap the bandages. To her dismay, the woman's skin came off with the dirty cloth, peeling away in chunks. A swollen, seeping slice traveled from the woman's shoulder to her elbow.

"What? Can you not heal it?" The woman's voice became infused with panic at the changing expression on Sakura's face.

"I can. I just wish you'd seen someone about this earlier," Sakura said, letting her chakra flow from her fingertips. The damage was deep and her tissues were inflamed and angry and beginning to rot, but slowly, the muscle began knitting back together. As she had thought, infection had begun to set in, likely worsened by the rags she'd wrapped her arm in.

"Not like real healers come through here often. Our only good one was killed a few months back," the woman sighed in relief as her pain subsided.

"Killed?" Sakura raised her eyebrows. New, healthy blood cells began generating and running through newly structured veins.

"Lot of people being killed around here. Ever since Kano moved in." The woman frowned at her own admission and looked suspiciously at her arm, as if Sakura's chakra was forcing things out of her mouth.

"Kano," Sakura repeated, excitement filling her stomach. "Kano who?"

"Kano nobody. Are you done yet?"

"No," Sakura murmured, deliberately slowing the rate of healing. "I heard the villages around these mountains were having problems."

"That's not Kano's fault. That's because we were the collateral damage in Konoha's war."

"Konoha's war," Sakura repeated, rebuilding the sinews in the elbow.

"Or the great ninja war or whatever you want to call it. The problems were already _here_ , thanks to those people. And Kano is just a side effect of that."

The animosity the woman clearly harbored toward Konoha and all ninja made Sakura feel uneasy. It was not the first time since leaving home that she'd heard this sentiment expressed. "But if he's killing people, Konoha didn't make him do that. He wasn't sent to target this town by the hidden villages."

The woman shrugged. "I don't know that. All I know is he came to the area after the war ended and has killed a bunch of people. He hangs out in bars trying to turn people into rebels when we've got it hard enough as it is. Are you done?"

"Huh?" Sakura looked down. The ugly gash had healed, leaving behind sensitive pink skin. At this point she was just wasting chakra, but she had become distracted with the new information. She patted the girl's arm. "Expect some tenderness for a few days. Otherwise, you'll be fine."

"What's your name?"

"Ino. Like the pig," Sakura lied. "What's yours?"

"Miko. You could make a lot of money if you stuck around, Ino. There's a lot of people like me floating around the streets."

"I'm not here for money. Can you… would you be able to tell me more about Kano?" Sakura asked hesitantly. "Does he live near here?"

"What business do you have with that thug?" Miko squinted. "If you're just passing through, better to just move on. He's trouble. A murderer, like you said."

"I could teach you what to do with these roots. In exchange for information." Sakura held up a willow root from the mat. "You could sell them as poultices and salves. It's good for pain and swelling. Even headaches. Around here, that would move better than just bitter roots."

"You're a weird healer. What kind of healer makes trades like that?"

"That's not a very nice thing to say," Sakura humphed. "I'm just interested in what's happened to this village."

"Fine. But I could get in a lot of trouble, so these things better sell. And you'd better take me to a nice lunch."

"I will," Sakura vowed, a triumphant smile hiding behind her solemn lips. Now the tides were turning. Finally.

That night, her head churning with the information given to her by the surprisingly well-informed Miko and her bag heavy with the maps of the mountain range she had purchased in the market, she crawled into bed and passed out. She did not dream of anything but red hair ribbons wrapped around mountain cypress boughs.

The next morning, she woke early. She counted her kunai before leaving the inn, making sure they were all strapped in and accounted for before traveling the edge of the village. Here, she removed the council's scroll from her bag and burned it with a weak fire jutsu; water was her chakra element, and fire never came easily to her. But if all that came of this mission was her corpse lying in the snow, it would not do to have her written objective so easily recovered by the enemy.

For six hours, she trudged through the snow up the mountain, occasionally pulling out her maps to check she was on the right course. If Miko had her facts straight, he was living somewhere in the network of caves on the east side of this mountain, just below the line where the trees could not survive the altitude. She couldn't blame the trees; the air was uncomfortably thin at this height. About two hours in, she had let the henge hiding her real appearance fall; nobody here was going to recognize her, unless the rabbits and deer could talk. At the fifth hour, she started to tune her senses to any evidence of Kano's existence; the trees were starting to thin, and the cave network was dwindling. He must be close. Although she had never been much of a chakra sensing type, Tsunade had taught her a lot about tracking the physical signs of life. Recently disturbed snow, dirt, and leaves could paint a subtle picture of a man trying to hide…

Or it could paint a garish picture of a man making no apparent attempt to conceal his existence whatsoever. Rabbit bones, cracked open with the marrow sucked out, began to litter the snow, and a certain smell began to permeate the cold air. She recognized this smell, although she wished that she didn't; decaying flesh. She swallowed her fears and trudged on, following the putrid path of bones and grayed snow to the rocky, icicle-toothed mouth of a generously sized cave. She worked on calming the visible puffs of breath escaping her lungs. _Remember who you're doing this for._

At the mouth of the cave, she stopped and pressed her body flush up against the cold stone. Something wasn't right.

Voices.

 _Voices._ More than one. There wasn't just one man in the cave.  
There were three.

 _Turn around._ Her survival instinct whispered, tugging at her heels. If the unexpected guests were civilians, she would have to come back another time. She hoped they were civilians. She swallowed and checked to make sure her chakra signature was completely hidden before stealing a glance into the cave.

Three men, sitting on the floor, talking in voices too low for her to hear. They seemed simultaneously tense and relaxed - like friends that were arguing, maybe. Two were large, one was average sized. And all three had curse marks on their necks.

 _Turn around. Now._ Her instinct urged her, louder this time. Her heart was racing. She knew she should leave, come back when she was more prepared, or wait until she could take Kano alone.

But when would she have this opportunity again? Three targets in one place?

 _Prove to them they made a good choice._ A different voice in her head whispered. _Prove it was a fair trade. Keep him safe._

 _I could die._ She argued with herself. _And what kind of trade will that be?_

 _So don't die._ The voice wheedled, growing louder. _If you die, who will be left to clean up with mess? Your friends? You're here to protect everyone. Not just him._

Sakura clenched her fists, pushing extra chakra into her fingertips, letting them buzz with nervous strength.

 _What are you going to do?_ The voice , that voice sounded like Tsunade. She knew what Tsunade would do: bust in there and break their necks and have a drink, ready to do it over again. But Sakura wasn't Tsunade.

Sakura also had already lost everything, but somehow had so much more to lose.

 _I'm going to fight._

She took a deep breath and curled her fingers into the rings of four kunai, two in each hand, one on her index finger and one on her little finger. She was careful not to touch the blades, as they were coated in one of Shizune's most sinister poisons. She'd spent a few weeks building up a basic immunity - it wouldn't kill her like it would someone else, but it would paralyze her for a few days. During which she would have horrible hallucinations of the veins being plucked out of her eyes like strings. She shuddered.

 _If you're outnumbered, take out as many of them as you can in the first swing._ One of the only things Kakashi had taught her. That, and a thousand excuses for being late. And where to hide when Tsunade was on a rampage.

 _Focus. If you're going to die, take them with you. Three less sins for Sasuke to atone for. Three less people for your friends to have to face._

She took one last look up at the sky - clear, blue, blinding - and one last breath - shaky, scared, determined - and pitched herself and her knives into the mouth of the cave.

Two of the men were quick to react. The third was not so lucky - her knife tunneled straight through his neck, and the gargle of the man drowning in his own blood was punctuated by the wet _slap_ of his writhing, bloody body collapsing on the floor.

The two left alive scrambled to their feet, shouting with wordless exclamations, looking around for the source of the kunai.

They didn't have to look long.

"You're going to get rabbit poisoning," Sakura said breathlessly, pointing to the raw rabbit on the cave floor. God, she said the dumbest things when she was nervous.

The remaining two men looked at each other in disbelief, faces and shirts speckled with the blood of their partner.

"I thought you said your cave was a safe place!" the smaller of the two men accused the other. Sakura assumed the larger man was Kano.

"It was," Kano growled, glancing at the now-still body on the stone floor and rolling up his sleeves before turning murderous eyes to Sakura. "You killed my friend."

"Your friend was a murderer."

"My friend nonetheless. I heard someone was asking around the mountain villages for me. Was it you?" Kano took a threatening step over the body.

Sakura tensed, her hand instinctively flitting to the remaining kunai at her hip. "Did you think no one would come looking for you? You're one of Orochimaru's experiments. You killed innocent villagers all over this country."

"And you're here to punish me for that?"

"Someone has to."

"Have it your way. It's not my fault if you get killed - you killed one of mine first. Akihito, I can take her. You head back down the mountain." He cracked his neck, rolling his head around on his thick shoulders, and the black, worm-like lesions of the curse mark began to travel across his skin, and the whites of his eyes began to blacken. He started to form symbols with his hands in a pattern that she didn't recognize.

Sakura took several steps back, her boots crunching on the snow. She had to get them out of this damned cave and into the open. She wasn't suited to fighting in enclosed spaces.

Before Kano could move, the second man lunged for her, black claws swiping at her throat. She dodged them easily.

"You smell like Konoha," the man growled, and Sakura could see that his curse mark was also expanding across his body, leaving tufts of black fur in its wake. His teeth were slowly growing, sharpening into fangs. Like Kiba, but bigger and uglier.

"I said I'll handle her!" snarled Kano, pushing the weird dog thing called Akihito out of the way.

"Why is Konoha sending their hounds after us now?" Akihito growled, ignoring the command and taking another swipe at her neck; she deflected. He was sloppy - sloppier than Kano, who aimed a blow at her gut that very nearly connected. She'd caught them off guard - they seemed to have no weapons on them. But they didn't seem to need them.

Sakura could see Kano frown as she parried another blow of devastating power from him. She returned the hit with twice the force, flinging his body into his friend, sending them both flying into the cave wall. In the same movement, she sent three of her knives flying after them. Two missed, but the third hit its target - square in the middle of Kano's chest.

To her dismay, the knife hit him with a bare _thunk_ and fell to the ground beside him, it's tip bent and blunted from the impact.

"That was hard," Kano frowned, brushing himself off and standing up. "Not very ladylike at all, if you ask me."

"Is that your secret? You're some sort of statue?" She felt sweat beading on her brow despite the cold. _Not good for a taijutsu user._

"Unbreakable skin," he grunted, cracking his knuckles. "It's not a secret."

She concentrated her energy into her ankles, springing off the ground and at the men with unnatural speeds; Kano made no attempts to dodge her blow. She drove her elbow into his clavicle with bone-shattering strength, and when the impact of her contact forced him down, she followed with a kick that landed solidly on his shoulder, sending him flying back into the stone walls of the cave.

Springing out from behind where Kano's body had just been, Akihito sunk his fangs into her left shoulder, barely missing her neck. His teeth tore through her muscles, severing sinew and crunching bone. With her other arm, she grabbed the scruff of the man-dog-thing's neck and flung him against the wall. Her left arm fell limply to her side - no feeling, no movement, blood draining fast from her subclavian, but no time to heal - Kano was back up and charging at her, and he was making hand signals she didn't recognize and -

 _Crack._ His fist connected with her skull, ten times harder than any human fist had the right to be, and lights splashed through her vision, bright and distracting and painful. She'd let herself be distracted by trying to figure out his hand symbols, and underestimated his speed.

Sakura recoiled, leaping backward sloppily. _Not good. Not good. Not good. Are you fucking kidding me?_ Unbreakable skin? Iron bones? Was he _made_ specifically to defeat her one offensive talent: punching things really hard?

 _Breathe, Sakura. Think._ Thinking had always been her strong point. No bloodline limit, but a brain and a desperate will to see the sun rise the next day. She was now squarely in the cave, in enemy territory, and there was only one exit. She needed to put some distance between them to give herself time to think of a strategy. But she was losing consciousness - blood was still flowing freely from her torn arteries and veins, and her head was pounding. She stopped the bleeding with just enough chakra to clot the blood, but dared not waste any more. If Kakashi was here, if Naruto was here, then they would… what would they do? They wouldn't need to think. They were so much stronger, so much smarter than her when it came to fighting. What would they _tell_ her to do?

 _Collapse the cave._ She glanced around the stone walls, trying to find a weak spot where the stone was thin. _There._ Toward the back, at the leftmost side, the walls were cracking.

Kano saw her notice the cracks the same moment she made up her mind to cave in the structure. He lunged for her as she lunged for the wall, charging her palm with glowing green chakra. At the same time that her fist made contact, she pushed a thin layer of chakra away from her skin, creating a momentary but strong burst of air -

The rocks tumbled around her, but bounced away from her actual body. Her impulsive shield had worked and left her standing amongst the debris that had once been a cave. The snow swirled lightly around her, and it was eerily quiet for how violently charged the air had been just moments before.

 _You did it._ She breathed a sigh of relief. Her muscles relaxed slowly, and she directed a small amount of chakra toward her arm to rebuild her shredded veins. The architecture could wait, but the infrastructure could not. It was a good thing collapsing the cave had worked, because her air shield consumed much more chakra than she had expected. _I'll work on it._ She looked around, trying to determine where the bodies might be underneath the piles of debris. She took a step forward to test the stability of the rocks - not too wobbly.

A hand burst through the rubble to grab her ankle.

She stepped back frantically, driving her exhausted body backward, trying to shake the hand off of her ankle and pulling a kunai from her hip. It wouldn't let go.

Kano was still alive under the rocks. She kicked at the hand with what little chakra she had left - still allowing her some monstrous strength, but not much.

But he was strong too, and he yanked her down, pulling his body up and out of the rubble. She fell, scrambling against the jagged stones to right herself.

"You might be strong." Kano growled. "But I'm unbreakable."

A sharp elbow landed in between her shoulder blades, forcing her forehead to snap into the hard rocks. A fractured rib was forced into one of her lungs as she was pressed harder into the remnants of the cave.

 _Heal._ Immediately she forced her chakra outward, into all of her cells, directing it to stop the damage. Not fast enough - white spots appeared in her vision, a crack in her skull bloomed, blood stung her eyes. The crack could be fixed, but if the soft brain tissue was damaged…

 _Wait._

"This is the best Konoha could muster to send after me? I'm almost insulted," Kano growled, stepping on her hand, crushing her bones, forcing the kunai in her hand into her skin and through the thick muscle of her palm.

He lifted her by her collar, his nose centimeters from hers. _Frontal. Temporal. Occipital. Maxilla._ Her mind whispered, and through the blood clouding her eyes and filling her throat, she visualized all of the parts of the skull in front of her. She only had one chance. Her breath was shallow, escaping her body in strained gasps.

"You all deserve what is coming to you. Pathetic."

 _Now._

With the last surge of chakra she had in her body, she rammed her forehead into his, forcing chakra back down her neck to counteract the force and keep it from breaking.

For a moment, nothing happened, and she was almost too drained to care. But then Kano staggered and released the hand holding her collar. And then he fell to the ground for the last time, eyes unseeing, heart still.

In the end, unbreakable skin and iron bones or not, his neurophysiology was the same as hers; a soft brain suspended in fluid in a hard cavity. Send it ricocheting in his own skull, and nothing but sludge remained.

She collapsed on the ground, gasping, blood falling from her lips. She fumbled with her vest, removing it and flinging it across the snow, and placed both of her hands on her chest, pumping glowing green chakra into her shredded lung and broken rib.

"Stay awake, stay awake." She muttered to herself, forcing herself to focus on knitting her torn lung together as black spots encroached on her consciousness. Slowly, her breathing became easier, and the piquant taste of blood stopped flooding her mouth with every haggard push of air from her lungs.

Finally, when she could do no more and her thoughts had deteriorated into nothing but instinctive bursts of resolve to live, she let the blackness usurp her senses.

When she woke up, daylight was glinting off of the snow. Gingerly, she turned her head; Kano's body was still there, staring into the sun. Her broken hand was aching, but she could still feel it. If she could feel it, she could fix it. Her head was pounding, and blood had crusted one of her eyes shut, but all of her limbs were still attached, and she could breathe.

She let her chakra ebb and flow from her core like the tide, circulating over her injuries, patching sarcomeres, weaving skin and muscle back together, fighting off infections that had tried to settle into her injuries during the night. She constricted the vessels in her skull and her headache gradually subsided, and the aching in her muscles dulled. It was just a patch job, but it was good enough to stand, although she swayed on her feet a little.

She burned Kano's body first, nausea settling in her stomach. If she left the bodies behind, she would lose the element of surprise. Someone would come looking for him, eventually. And they would find his body and know he was targeted, and know how he was killed. She did not know what they would make of a body with no visible injuries except a liquefied brain, but these were her instructions from the council: leave no trace.

She then dragged the other two bodies out of the rubble. They were broken and blackened - their blood had started to pool in their extremities, bruising their backs and fingers and toes - and rigor mortis, spurred by the freezing cold, had locked their joints in place. Their skulls were caved in and spines crushed. She laid them in the snow gently, closed their eyelids for the final time, and lit the tatters of their clothes on fire.

As the bodies burned, an absolute despondent desolation settled into Sakura, into the fractures and fissures of her being. Her soul felt desecrated and forsaken, stripped raw and whipped into a bloody mess. The smoke wrapped around her and cradled her body gently to the cold snowy ground, where she sobbed, forehead touching the ice and fists pounding the into the soft white. She sobbed for how close she had come to death, yes. But mostly she sobbed in mourning of her old life, the old Sakura, and in recognition of the new life she was starting. She sobbed as her new normal stared her in the face, in the form of glassy, unseeing eyes reflecting the voracious fire that she had set to erase what had once been a human being.

When she finally rose, the bodies were nothing but ashes and nothing remained of her old self but quivering scraps, forced into the corner of her newly hardened heart. There was only one thought in her mind: get stronger. She knew she had won by a mere fluke and she couldn't count on the next enemy letting his guard down. She couldn't count on anything or anyone but herself. She had no bloodline limit. No ninja companions, no family artifacts. Hell, she didn't even have a fucking _weapon_ except for basic kunai _._ And she marched right into the cave of a _killer._

She would have to do better. She would have to be smarter. She would have to be more prepared.

But there would be time for that tomorrow. For now, she had to get off this godforsaken mountain before any more unwelcome company came looking for anyone who was now dead; either in body or in spirit.


	6. rabbits

Back at her hideout, Sakura settled back on her heels, one hand on the knotted bark of an old pine that she hid behind in the snowy forest surrounding her cabin; her eyes followed a lone white fox, whose eyes followed a lone white rabbit.

She felt paralyzed as she watched the fox hunt the poor creature, the cold air calm but somehow still biting. Rabbits had never been cut out for the cold reality of the things that hunted them with such cunning effectiveness; all they could do was run. And they couldn't run forever.

And in the same moment it began, it was over; the fox pounced, his jaws closing expertly around the rabbit's neck. With a swift jerk of the fox's head, the rabbit's neck snapped, and its blood on the snow painted its violent end.

She felt sick. She had ventured out of her cabin for the first time since returning from her mission because she thought the fresh air might breathe new life into her lungs and give her the courage to move forward. It had done the opposite.

It took twelve days for her to recover, and in that time, a new scroll had appeared on her doorstep. Somehow, the council knew that Kano was dead and she was alive. Were they watching her? Did they see her stumble home in the dark that night, her eyelashes frozen together and her lips blue? Did they see her sob into her bed every night, her body shaking with grief and loneliness and fear? Or was there no one keeping an eye on her at all, and the scrolls would continue to come regardless of if she was there to collect them or if she was rotting in damp forest bed with maggots in her eyes? Some nights, she stared out into the unending blackness, wondering, with both hope and hatred in her heart, if someone was staring back.

Now, two weeks after her return, she sat at the rickety table, anxiously wringing her injured wrist and smoothing her fingers over the sinews, staring at the unopened scroll. Certainly it held a foe more formidable than the last, and more formidable than herself by an order of magnitude. Her initial disquiet had swelled into panic and it had no outlet; it settled into the pit of her stomach and made its home there, shivering its way into her muscles. She knew she was a rabbit. And she knew her days were numbered; death was coming for her, peeking its head around every corner, waiting for her to walk herself into his arms. Everyone else must have accepted her death by now. She was the only one left who needed to come to terms with her own extinction.

No. She shook her head. What would Tsunade say, to see her disciple wallowing in despair and self pity? Accept your defeats with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child. That was what Tsunade had told her when she returned to Konoha empty handed for the fifth time, or maybe it was the sixth, trying and failing to bring Sasuke home. This was the time she had accepted that it was truly only Naruto who could bring him back into the light, and it was one of an insurmountable number of times that she had felt well and truly useless.

She slammed her hand down on the table. You are not useless. That was her biggest downfall, she knew - letting herself get inside her own head. She had to push her own mind to the side and lift her soul to the forefront and allow that to guide her - she did her best work that way. And she would do her best work now, god damn it, with so much on the line. The lives of her friends, the life of the man she loved, the life of her village. That was what she had traded for her own existence, and she knew it was worth it. She knew it was worth the hardship that it would be to endure this new life.

She wasn't really sure if she believed in an afterlife. When she was little, she had thought that souls must go somewhere, and they might as well go somewhere nice, like heaven. But after spending considerable time with Tsunade learning the ins and outs of life on a chemical level, she had started to see how life could just be one big accident. Regardless, if there was an afterlife, and if she did get to see her friends there someday, she was going to have been someone they could be proud of. She was going to have stories that left their eyes wide, and power that left them speechless.

She would have to become stronger on her own. She was the daughter of two shop owners in the civilian district; nothing had ever come easy to her, not when it came to being a shinobi, not when it mattered. Except walking up trees. But she didn't see how she was going to take years of being a support fighter into being a front line, offensive force by walking up trees.

Trees.

 _Trees…._

She sighed, and looked up at the bare and cracking sealing of her hut. An old idea, one that she had entertained when she was younger and desperate for the kind of power that could bring her heart back home against its will, lifted its head and stretched its cramped wings. It had been unattainable and reckless then, and it was unattainable and reckless now. But now she had no teacher, no friends, no books, no other way to get the kind of power she needed.

Shikkotsu forest was a long, long way away, and she would not be able to find her way there on her own. After much hesitation, and hemming and hawing and trying to convince herself there must be another way, she bit into the flesh of her own thumb and dragged it across her palm, and on the bleached wood of the rickety table, she drew her summoning circle in fresh blood.

 **..**

 **..**

 _Sasuke was 12 again, or maybe 13. He didn't know. But he was wearing his old blue shirt, with the Uchiha crest on the back, and gray shorts, like he had in his childhood, and sunlight was warming his skin as he laid in the grass of the training ground. And his head was resting in her lap and she was sitting and looking at the sky; her hair was long, longer than it had been since he could remember, and catching the breeze. He reached up and carefully caught a few strands between his fingers; she was young again, too, wearing a red ribbon in her hair and a simple green dress._

 _"This is a dream, you know," she told him, in that know-it-all way of hers._

 _"I know," he said softly, and touched her cheek; he had felt it once or twice before, in the brief moment after the war where he was home and she was alive, and they had been alone._

 _"Did you ever want me?" she asked, and her voice was wistful, her hand covering his._

 _"I did," he said quietly. Here, he could say things he would never say out loud when he was awake._

 _She disintegrated through his fingertips, and suddenly, he was lying in a shallow pit in the woods, damp soil underneath him and the mottled light filtered through leaves dotting his face. He squeezed his eyes shut; he had been here before, he had seen this before. He dreamed it nearly every night. He knew exactly what was lying next to him, cold and rotting and pressed against his shoulder. He also knew he wouldn't wake up until he opened his eyes and faced her corpse._

When he woke up drenched in sweat, he did not move for several minutes.

How many months had it been? He had lost count. Some days he was fine, and he was almost a normal person. Other days, every thought he had was of someone he had lost, and every waking moment hurt his soul. He knew that today was going to be one of the latter. It might have been easier if he was allowed to leave the village, and put his mind and body to other things, but his probation was unending and bordering on imprisonment.

He sighed, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. No sense in laying there drowning in dreams anymore. It was several minutes past sunrise; the flower shop would be open, and in a few hours the training grounds would be full of genin trying to nail leaves to trees. Better to get in before that than to be gored by a well-meaning but poorly-thrown kunai.

When he left his house, the sun was no more than an inch above the horizon. By the time he made it to the flower shop, it was nearly three inches higher.

"Rough day, Sasuke?" Ino said from behind the counter, absent-mindedly arranging stems in a vase.

"Hn," he hummed, rubbing the petals of a lily between his fingers.

"Those are nice." She nodded towards a field's worth of chrysanthemums, arranged in vases and buckets. "Their season is just starting. Who are you visiting today?"

"Several people." He picked up two small bunches of the chrysanthemums and several stems of the lilies.

Ino frowned at the flowers in his hands. "Those aren't really the right selections for the message you are trying to send."

Sasuke shrugged. "How much?"

Ino sighed and sold him the flowers, with much frowning and lecturing involved from her, and much silence involved from Sasuke. On his way out, she handed him a single yellow rose.

"Give her this one for me."

Sasuke accepted it with a nod, and continued on his journey. The village was beginning to wake; lights in windows were turning on as he walked by, and the early morning fog had lifted several inches off the ground, starting its daily disintegration back into the air. It was a cold, windy morning. He didn't mind.

When he arrived at the gates of the cemetery, he had an ominous feeling that he was coming home. Here lay the bodies of all of those who had loved him, and who he had loved in return. His mother, father, brother, and all of his clansmen were lain to rest in the northeastern corner; Sakura was quite a bit more to the west, where those who had no clan to lay with, were buried.

He closed his eyes and imagined the wind was the hands of all of the people he had lost; Itachi at his back, pushing him forward; his father, hand on his shoulder, guiding him; his mother's hand on his arm for reassurance. And Sakura's fingertips lingered on his cheeks, reminding him that despite all he had done, somebody could still love him, somehow.

He walked to the large plot where his family was. He left flowers at the grave of his mother and his brother (after the war, Kakashi had decreed that Itachi was allowed to rest in the Konoha cemetery; although there was no body, it was enough for Sasuke); he knelt on the grass and rested his hand on the grave of his father, closing his eyes and remaining still for several minutes. This was his near-daily ritual, spending time with his family. He did not wonder if they were watching over him. He knew there was no point. For a long time, he was still.

Finally, he stood, and moved on. He would be back soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe sooner. It's not like he could go anywhere else. The entire village had a worn track of his footprints, by now: home, flower shop, cemetery, training, hokage's office, market. He continued the beaten path onward, from his father's grave to hers.

But today, something was different: he wasn't alone. He was surprised to see a figure standing in front of her grave, wearing a green flak jacket, black pants and a frown.

Shikamaru was there, his arms crossed and brow furrowed. He was staring hard at her grave as if it was a game piece that he needed to move.

Sasuke paused for a moment, trying to ascertain what the appropriate action was. When he was young, when he'd had a family, he'd been raised with the utmost emphasis on manners and respect. He was a representative of the Uchiha, his mother had stressed. But for so many years, he had thought of nothing but himself, of nothing but his own comfort and sorrow and desires. Learning how to accommodate others and their emotions was coming back slowly, with concentrated effort.

 _People want you to talk to them, Sasuke. People want to accept you. But you have to give them a chance,_ a voice lectured in his head. He remembered her saying it, sitting on his floor some two or three weeks after he'd come home for good, after nobody would sell him anything in the market. She'd bought his groceries then; people were more than happy to talk to her. It seemed there wasn't a person in the village whose broken arm she hadn't healed or whose baby she hadn't delivered.

He sighed, for maybe the tenth time this morning, and walked to her grave with his hand wrapped around the flowers underneath his cloak. He stopped several feet from Shikamaru and turned to face the grave.

For several moments, neither of them said anything.

Sasuke cleared his throat. "Uh. Hello."

Shikamaru, started, whipped his head toward Sasuke. "Eh? What are you doing here? Did Kakashi send you here to bring me in?"

"No. I come here, uh, sometimes," Sasuke said awkwardly, aware that _sometimes_ was an understatement. He brought the flowers forward, as if he needed some sort of proof.

"Oh," Shikamaru said, scratching the back of his neck, possibly embarrassed. "Me too. Well, not that much. It's kind of a long walk from my house. Kind of."

Sasuke dipped his head to acknowledge that he'd heard Shikamaru, and knelt to place the flowers at the headstone. He also plucked a weed that had started to grow.

"Hey, Sasuke."

"Hn." He did not turn around.

"I'm actually just now coming back from a mission. I got back this morning."

Sasuke nodded again, hoping Shikamaru would take it as an invitation to continue. His words often did not come out the way he had intended; he found it better to use them sparingly, only when absolutely necessary.

"Do you know anything about how she died?"

Sasuke finally stood and took a step back, still facing her grave. "Not any more than anyone else."

Shikamaru frowned again. "I kind of thought they might have told you a bit more. You know, considering."

 _Considering what?_ Sasuke wanted to ask. But he didn't; he kind of knew the answer. "Ambushed and killed. That's all I know."

"Right. Me too, and I totally believe it. But on my way back from our mission, we were passing by the place where she died. And I decided to stop, because I thought it would be worth seeing."

"At the edge of the country, right?" Sasuke said lightly, not sure when Shikamaru was going with this. Probably should have just left him to his own thoughts.

"Yeah. Well, I went to the exact spot where her file says she was killed, right? And… there was nothing there."

Sasuke frowned. "Were you expecting something?"

"No, Sasuke, I mean there was _nothing_ there. Nothing out of the ordinary, just… just a normal patch of woods."

"Right," Sasuke said slowly. Shikamaru was probably just tired. And he had been friends with her. He was just trying to make sense of it all, like everyone else. Sasuke felt slightly pleased with himself for this newfound empathy and understanding.

Shikamaru shook his head. "I have to head back into town. But you should think about going. See if you know what I mean."

 **..**

 **..**

"You have to talk to him eventually," Hyuuga Hinata murmured gently, pushing her ramen around her bowl with a pair of chopsticks.

"I don't have to do anything," Naruto replied petulantly.

They were seated across the table from each other at Ichiraku, the afternoon sun resting lazily on their skin.

"You miss each other. It's been nearly six months since you've spoken."

"He doesn't miss _anyone_. He's heartless," Naruto grumbled, his mouth full. Hinata sighed.

"No he isn't. He needs you. You need him," she pushed quietly. She would normally never be so insistent, but she could see how the separation was frustrating both of the boys, even in her limited contact with Sasuke. After Sakura's death, they had hardy spoken - Hinata suspected they didn't know what to do with each other without Sakura holding them together, forcing them to see each other and facilitating conversations that did not end with broken noses or shouting matches. Shino and Kiba were the same way.

"Are you trying to get rid of me!"

"Of course not," Hinata stammered. "I just… I just think you both want to talk to each other. Just neither of you wants to be the first one."

Naruto pointed a chopstick at her suspiciously, his mouth full of noodles. "What's gotten into you today? You never do this."

She felt her face redden - after all these years she had given up on the reflex as being completely uncontrollable and had accepted that her cheeks would just turn red of their own accord, whenever they felt like it.

He squinted at her. "Tell me."

"I just… Excuse me if I'm overstepping. I just wonder how healthy it is. The way you're dealing with everything. Jiraiya, and Sakura, and Neji... It's been so long, and I… I just wonder."

"You're not overstepping. You're my girlfriend. But you're worrying for nothing. I'm fine."

"I know you're fine. But when Neji died, I… even now, sometimes, I… I just know that it's difficult. Nearly all of us have lost someone now… but you've lost so many people, and you've been so great and strong, but it's okay if you don't want to be anymore."

"I know, but I'm fine, really. Because I have you!" he grinned, and Hinata could tell that he didn't want to talk about this anymore.

"But who does Sasuke have?" She said gently.

Naruto groaned. "Why did you have to say that?"

 **..**

 **..**

Later that same day, several hours after Sasuke had come home and mulled over what Shikamaru had said and decided to drop it, and then pick it back up, and then drop it again, and then pick it right back up, there was a knock at his door.

Sasuke checked the clock on the wall. He wasn't sure why. It was strange for him to have visitors at all, regardless of the time. He opened the door without bothering to check the peephole. He could use a surprise.

Well. Maybe not _this_ surprise.

"What are you doing here?" Sasuke frowned.

"Hinata made me." Naruto frowned back, crossing his arms.

"She made you," Sasuke said, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. The Hyuuga girl could hardly raise her voice above a whisper - much less make Naruto do something he didn't want to.

"Believe it." Naruto grumbled. "Can I come in?"

"I guess," Sasuke stood aside, opening a pathway into his apartment. "It's kind of a mess."

"You call this a mess?" Naruto pointed at a crumpled up piece of paper on the coffee table. "Are you being serious?"

Sasuke shrugged, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"You can't even walk in my apartment. Hinata refuses to go inside," Naruto grumbled.

"Hn."

"So, uh… what have you been up to? It's been a while."

"You don't have to do this. I'll tell Hinata you came over if she asks."

"I know I don't have to do it," Naruto bristled. "I'm just worried about you."

Sasuke snorted. "What else is new?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. Sasuke knew it was not a fair thing for him to say.

"Have you left the village at all?"

"Not allowed."

"Not allowed to leave alone. You can leave if you have a chaperone. So what's the problem? Don't tell me you like it here."

Sasuke shrugged. "Nobody will take a mission that I'm on. Kakashi says people are afraid that I'm murderous."

"You were pretty murderous for a few minutes there. Back in the day."

"It felt like the right decision at the time. I already apologized."

"Hey, I'm not mad at you for it. It's not me you have to apologize to. So how do we make people believe you're not murderous?"

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. We? "I haven't been going around scaring little children or anything. I've been keeping to myself."

"Serial killers keep to themselves. Crazy people keep to themselves. You have to at least try."

"People prefer not to be bothered," Sasuke said, with a slightly haughty air.

" You prefer not to be bothered."

Sasuke shrugged. There was no denying this. They sat in silence for several moments before he spoke. "I talked to Shikamaru today."

"You did? That's a start. Shikamaru is great."

"He seems to think there's something weird about how Sakura died. He went to the place where she was killed." Sasuke said hesitantly.

Naruto frowned. "What did he say was weird about it?"

"That it was completely normal. Or something like that."

"He's a weird guy." Naruto said, but Sasuke could tell he was thinking. He knew that Naruto trusted Shikamaru with his life.

"If he went there all this time later, after it's been months… He couldn't expect anything, could he? What would you expect to see?" Sasuke asked hesitantly. He did not want to sound like he'd been thinking about it as much as he had been. It seemed unhealthily obsessive, even for him.

"Lots of stuff." Naruto scratched the back of his head. Sasuke could see the wheels turning in his head _. Lots of stuff? What do you mean lots of stuff?_ Sasuke wanted to strangle him for his vague response. "I have to go. But I'll come back tomorrow. Try to interact with someone else before then. It's good for you. Believe it."

He left, leaving Sasuke alone in his apartment, simultaneously feeling more frustrated by an order of magnitude, and better than he had in months.

 **..**

 **..**

"Miss Sakura." The tiny slug bowed its head. "I had wondered when I would be hearing from you."

"Didn't you hear, Katsuyu? I died," Sakura said wryly, offering her hand to the slug. It wriggled into her palm and Sakura lifted it to eye-level.

"I had heard of your death, among other things."

"But you didn't believe it?"

"Humans are easier fooled than slugs; your energy remained in the air, although you have left home. We have been wondering what you had been hoping to gain from your deceit."

Sakura knew there was shame in her eyes, and she did not bother to hide it.

"But we have heard a great many other things, as well," the slug said gently. "Tell me, why have you called me here?"

Sakura squared her shoulders, and drew in a deep breath. "I want to go to Shikkotsu forest. I need to become more powerful. I, uh, I have... The village needs me to be more powerful. And I… I thought that I would ask you to bring me there, or just tell me how to get there, or, uh… something like that."

Sakura felt ridiculous. She knew she was ill-suited for what she was asking for; you were supposed to already be pretty powerful, before becoming a sage. And you were supposed to be invited, not ask to be invited.

The tiny slug cocked its head. "We had wondered if you might ask us this, when you first signed your contract with us. We had discussed it then. You wish to become a sage?"

"You discussed it?"

"Tsunade had told us you were more ambitious than you appear; she told us you could be a candidate, if you could master the seal and... In her words, 'get your priorities right.'"

Sakura smiled. "I can't believe she said that."

"She thought quite highly of you. Your death has stricken her quite a blow."

Again, Sakura felt it better to allow her silence to speak for her remorse and sorrow. She had often thought of how unfair it was to Tsunade, to let her think that her student was dead, after all of the losses she had suffered in her life. She often thought of how unfair it was to everyone she had known, all who had lost so many people already.

"I will bring you to the forest. But we have many things to discuss there first, before we decide if you may become a sage. There will be many questions, and many tests. It is a dangerous undertaking, for a human to come to Shikkotsu. But becoming a sage is nearly certain death," Katsuyu warned.

 _Nearly_ certain death was good enough for Sakura, who knew that her other option was _absolutely_ certain death. She nodded.

"You would still like to go?"

"Yes."


	7. move on

It was an early, gray morning in the business district of Konoha; water droplets were suspended in the air, not quite fog and not quite rain, and Sasuke was standing in the middle of it. He was frozen in place, staring across the street from where he stood, his eyes unwilling to blink. If his eyes shut, she would not be in front of him when they opened again.

She was standing in front of a cafe, wearing a black turtleneck under her medic vest, checking her watch, brushing her pink hair out of her face, frowning. She glanced back in the direction of the hospital twice. _Morning shift starts in half an hour_.

Naruto was next to her, tugging the collar of his jacket, peering into the crowd, muttering something to her that she nodded along with, rolling her eyes.

Then she saw Sasuke, and her eyes lit up, and Naruto started waving frantically and shouting at him from across the street. _Late again, dobe._

A bustle of old women, shopping bags full of lettuces and tomatoes nestled into their arms, walked through the old memory of his friends, and their forms disappeared like smoke in the sunlight. It had started raining; Sasuke hadn't noticed.

Sasuke was living in his memories, as his father had, as all of his ancestors had. It was the Uchiha way.

The three of them meeting for coffee twice a week had been Sakura's idea that Naruto had enthusiastically agreed to. Sasuke knew that neither she nor Naruto drank coffee. It made her anxious and Naruto didn't need the extra energy. Sasuke took his black, but dropped a sugar cube in when he thought no one was looking, two if he could get away with it. Sasuke had been late more often than not, always greeted with the same scene: his teammates, impatiently waiting for him on the sidewalk, exchanging shorthand quips that came naturally after years of close friendship. He had been vaguely uncomfortable, almost envious of their familiarity - he knew it was something hard won between them and not shared with him.

She always looked tired. He knew she didn't sleep well. None of them did. He saw the three of them for what they were: child soldiers with guilty consciences and broken hearts that were healing in some places and necrotizing in others. But they were his; his to keep, and his to lose.

Sasuke began to understand the desperation Naruto felt to bring him back to Konoha.

It felt like Shikamaru had raised her from the dead with his words. Even though Sasuke knew she was gone, hearing someone else question the circumstances surrounding her death had been enough for him to start seeing her around every corner, hearing her voice in every crowd. He'd never been one for moving on, not really, not when he should.

He tore himself away from the wet sidewalk, trudging forward with his shoulders hunched against the stinging rain. He was not out and about on a pleasure stroll; he had a destination ahead of him: the Hokage's office.

When he arrived and had been let through the heavy double doors into the office, Kakashi frowned at him. The Hokage was not happy to see his student. Sasuke couldn't blame him.

"Any updates?" Sasuke asked. The thing he missed most about having two arms was being able to cross them. The one arm just felt so _awkward,_ hanging there like a christmas ornament.

Kakashi sighed. "I wish you wouldn't make me say no so often. Can't you ask something else? Like Kakashi, do you have a lot of paperwork today?"

"Then find something new and I'll stop asking."

"It's been over a year, Sasuke. There's nothing left to find. All that's left is for us to move on with our lives."

"So you're trying to tell me that you've stopped looking."

"I am not trying to tell you that. I'm trying to tell you exactly what I said: there's nothing left to find. We know everything that we will ever know about how she died."

"Fine. Then since it was an official investigation, I want to read the official report. I want to know the mission she was on."

Kakashi leaned over his desk, settling his chin into his palm. "You don't have that kind of clearance."

"What kind of clearance do I have?"

"Absolutely zilch. No clearance whatsoever."

"Well, if it's an empty report that doesn't say anything that I don't already know, then why can't I read it anyway?"

"Because of the paperwork," Kakashi snapped, starting to become frustrated. "Sasuke, everyone else in the village has moved on but you. Who knows how many times you've been in here asking about a long-closed investigation that you asked to have opened. It's not healthy. Move on."

"You haven't moved on."

"I'm old and she was my student. I'm not supposed to move on. You're young and you have your best years ahead of you. You are supposed to get on with your life. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Kakashi's tone suggested that he found nothing even vaguely pleasant about an ambush by his former student.

After several beats of silence, Sasuke leaned forward, trying to keep his voice nonchalant. "I ran into Shikamaru a few days ago."

Kakashi frowned, leaning back in his chair. "He was supposed to come straight here. I still haven't had a report from him yet."

"Maybe you just don't have the clearance to read it."

"I'll show you clearance," Kakashi grumbled. "Where did you see Shikamaru? I'll go strangle that report out of him."

"At Sakura's grave."

Kakashi's frown deepened. "Why do I have the feeling this is why you're here? Tell me this isn't why you're here."

Sasuke ignored him, deciding to press his luck. "He told me that he went to where she died. He told me something seemed off… that there was nothing there at all. What was he expecting to see?"

"He was probably just in the wrong spot. It's a very tricky place to get to, that edge of the border."

"Does Shikamaru make a lot of little mistakes like that?" Sasuke asked, focusing on keeping his tone light, even though he knew the answer. Bile and anger were rising in his throat. Someone was hiding something from him. Something about how she died. Innocent people did not act this way.

"We all make mistakes, Sasuke," Kakashi said pointedly.

"Naruto seemed to know what Shikamaru was talking about," Sasuke needled, hedging his bets.

"Naruto is full of hot air and you know it. It's unfair of you to dangle this in front of his eyes. You know better than anyone what he'll do or believe where old friends are involved."

"I want to go see it for myself. So does Naruto."

"No."

"You can't stop me."

"You would be surprised at what I can stop you from doing," Kakashi murmured, his eyes narrowed. "You might think you can do whatever you want these days, but you can't. The investigation is very much closed."

They stood in angry silence for a moment before Kakashi sighed once more.

"I don't want to be hard on you. But it's for your own good. Let the happy memories be what they were. Let her rest in peace instead of dragging her soul with you everywhere you go. Go home, Sasuke."

"Just tell me one thing."

"If I can tell you, I will."

"Did her mission have anything to do with me?"

"No," Kakashi said, and Sasuke knew from the look in his eyes that it was best to leave it alone. "No, it didn't."

"Thanks." Sasuke said, not feeling particularly thankful. In fact, he had the distinct feeling that he had just been lied to.

After a terse goodbye, he left. But he did not go home, as he had been instructed.

Instead, Sasuke did what he had been meaning to do for months now. After leaving Kakashi's office, Sasuke did not turn down the road that lead to the outskirts of the village where he lived. Instead, he turned toward toward the center of town.

Speaking with Kakashi had done nothing to quell the uneasiness that had settled over him, as he had hoped; rather, it had worked to increase it. He could think of no reason for Kakashi to deny his request to see for himself the place where she died. Theories were building in his mind, wearing into pathways that he had long since stopped walking down.

After a short but brisk walk through crowded buildings, he stopped in front of a muddled red three story pile of apartments with mustard yellow doors and decaying handrails decorating the building like a shitty Christmas tree.

This building was one of many reserved for active-duty ninja. No one had had the heart to clean it out. Tsunade, the only person who might have done it, had left town not long after the war and never returned. Her parents had refused, Ino had her own father's belongings left to sort through, and Naruto couldn't bear it. And since the post-war reduction in demand for ninja housing, it had remained untouched.

Sasuke had steered clear of it until now, telling himself that another day would be better, another time.

Time had run out.

* * *

Less than an hour after Sasuke had finally left Kakashi's office, it was once again full of people asking questions regarding his pink haired former student. Kakashi sat in a council meeting, pressing his fingers into his eyes, trying to quash a burgeoning headache.

"She struggled more than we had expected," an old man with a craggy, scarred face muttered, impatiently tapping his fingers on the table in front of him. "Were we wrong about her?"

"It was out of character. She's stronger than that." Kakashi snapped, and his head was spinning from how quickly he had to switch from discussing her death to discussing her life. Today was all about the girl, he supposed. "She's not a soloist. You should have given her more information than just a single stupid _name_. You didn't follow protocol because you wanted her to fail."

"What more does a shinobi need than a name and location?" the old man snapped back. "That was all of the relevant information, and it was given to her. Be careful with your accusations, boy."

"Tsunade herself told me that the girl had long since surpassed her master. She is young and alone for the first time; perhaps she needs time to adjust," murmured a woman with soft gray hair piled high on her head.

"Not only did she nearly die herself, she went off-target. The other man she killed was _not_ slated for assassination. I would consider that an _insubordination._ "

"What does it matter if she killed him now or later? She was being _efficient._ Showing _initiative._ You were going to send her after him sooner or later." Kakashi did not fail to notice the glances exchanged between the elders at the table, and they made him uneasy. He'd had a feeling for months now that there were undercurrents of agendas that he had no access to.

"That is not the job of a shinobi. Obedience, silence, and skill. None of which she has shown us so far. Shinobi who show initiative are a _liability._ Shinobi who decide their own targets, who decide they know better than their superiors are _dangerous._ We are disappointed, Kakashi."

"She just needs more time. It's not strength she's lacking. It's nerve," he said through clenched teeth.

"We were able to control the narrative this time. Her sloppiness was able to be obscured as a civilian with improvised explosives taking revenge for a murdered friend. But there can be no next time. You know as well as anyone that she cannot be brought home, and a loose cannon cannot be allowed to reel around, _ownerless._ "

Kakashi's retinas began to burn, the way they always had when anger curdled his blood. "You sent her out there out of spite for me and my team. You gave her nothing. And now you're upset that you've reaped what you've sewn, that your horribly stupid plan turned out to be horribly stupid, and so you're just going to terminate your own ninja for your own short-sightedness?"

"Nobody is being terminated yet," the old woman cautioned, her voice placating. "We can overlook this one misstep. But you must have known what cards were on the table, Kakashi, as does she."

"As did you," Kakashi spit.

"We thought we did," the old man seethed in return.

"We can table this discussion pending future development. Is there anything else to discuss before we end this meeting?" Another elder asked, eyes sweeping the room.

Kakashi kept his mouth shut. He could not tell them that suspicion had started to mount among his ranks, in the three worst soldiers for it to take hold of. His smartest, his most obsessive, and his jinchuriki, all looking for more information, asking questions he couldn't answer. No, he couldn't tell them now, when they were already wondering if it was worth the risk of keeping her alive. No, this was a fire Kakashi would have to put out on his own. He knew they could be placated. He would just have to spin the yarn a little further.


	8. shikkotsu

Before departing her snowy cabin for Shikkotsu, Sakura opened the scroll that held her next target. It held both a man's name and a specific village - while better than a general mountain range, she still very nearly started hyperventilating at the thought of going after another target. Katsuyu, reading the scroll from a perch on Sakura's shoulder, promised to accompany her and help if necessary; while this made Sakura feel significantly better, it hardly dissolved her dread.

The target had been easy to find. The village, while not quite on the way to Shikkotsu, was only a detour of a few days, and boasted pleasant weather and vibrant markets. Unlike Kano, this man did not keep to himself, and did not live in a cave; he boasted his name everywhere he went, and the villagers, who had been largely left alone by the war, were happy to point her in his direction. He stole and fought and killed and slept in inns or with his drunken face pressed into a bar. He wasn't careful, and when Sakura had disguised herself as a pretty blonde with soft brown eyes and sat next to him in a tavern, he spent too much time looking at her chest and not her hands. He'd been drunk beyond thought when she'd sprinkled the powder into his drink. It didn't need to be tasteless; if it was tasted, then it was already too late. He died alone in his room an hour later, after Sakura had excused herself to go to the restroom and didn't return.

It had been a clean, easy kill, done within two days of her arrival in the village. It made her uneasy to think that all it had taken to turn her into a killer had been a few months in the snow and one butchered assassination, but she felt undeniable relief at how smoothly the mission came and went. Her respite was quickly quelled with the thought of how many more missions were to come, and how unlikely it was that they would all be drunks with a soft spot for pretty, chatty girls.

The next day, she pressed onward with Katsuyu on her shoulder. It had been nearly two weeks since then, walking through grassy fields with no shelter from the blistering sun. Sakura had draped a shirt over her head and the slug's body; somehow, the back of her neck still burned and blistered.

Now, per Katsuyu, they were drawing close to the human entrance of the forest; no more than an hour's journey at a leisurely pace, and the slug began to tell her what to expect in Shikkotsu.

"You will go through a cleansing period in the forest," Katsuyu murmured in Sakura's ear. "It will last many days."

"Like a bath?" Sakura mumbled. A bath would be nice. "Are there hot springs?"

"Not a bath. There are no baths. They are a human invention."

"Oh."

"A spiritual cleansing. On all levels of your being, you must be clean."

"Not the physical level."

"We don't care so much about the physical level, no."

Sakura sighed. _She_ cared deeply about cleanliness at the physical level; she suspected that the longer she went without a bath, the more her humanity seeped out of her body.

"You can see Shikkotsu now, Miss Sakura," Katsuyu murmured. Sakura squinted into the distance; the forest had come into sight, dark and massive and foreboding. A large, decrepit stone arch stood at the very edge, decaying and crumbling. Sakura had a feeling she was going to have to walk through it.

After they had traversed nearly three quarters of the distance to the arch, Katsuyu spoke again. "I will leave you here, and go alert your hokage and his superiors to your plans, as we discussed."

Sakura stopped walking and bowed her head in thanks, her eyes staring into the greenery.

"As soon as you step foot in Shikkotsu, it will try to spit you out. You must be strong. Especially now, in the beginning, it will be difficult for you. Keep moving toward the center; that is the home of my family and we will greet you at the temple there."

"I will," Sakura promised, and gently lifted the slug off of her shoulder and placed it on the ground. "Will I be seeing you soon?"

"I would not say particularly soon, no. But that depends on you," The slug said cryptically.

"Then I will see you not particularly soon," Sakura smiled, and bowed to the slug. "Safe travels."

"You as well."

And with a poof, the slug disappeared into thin air.

Alone again for the first time in weeks, Sakura stood at the edge of the forest for a few moments; there was something different about the trees here than the trees from home. Like they were _sentient._ She shook her head; trees were trees, no matter where they were. She stepped into the woods, holding her breath.

Nothing happened. She took a step.

Nothing happened again.

She took another step.

"What are you waiting for?" a small voice called out, making Sakura jump out of her skin.

"Who's there?" she called back, palming a kunai at her waist. There was no discernible source for the voice. Unless… the trees? She squinted at the trunks surrounding her. She _knew_ something was different about them.

"Oh, relax. There'll be no need for that," the voice replied. "Stop glaring at the trees. It's me, your friendly forest slug guide. Over here. No, over _here._ That's it. A few steps closer."

As Sakura walked towards the voice, a small form began to distinguish itself from the bark of an old birch. Perhaps half the length and twice the girth of her forearm, Sakura could tell it was an older slug despite its small size; the brown spots that mottled its ivory skin gave it away.

"Oh!" Sakura exclaimed, and bowed before the slug as she had been taught by Tsunade. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you there."

"Is that so," the slug said dryly. "You may pick me up. Careful, careful. My back isn't what it used to be."

Sakura gently pulled the slug from the bark and allowed it to slither around her wrist creating a perch in her palm.

"I'm sure Katsuyu told you that you will train while you journey to the home of the slugs in the center of the forest. Well, today, you train with me while I guide you to the next post. There, your next guide will meet you. And so on, until you reach the temple of the sages."

"Uh, no, Katsuyu must have forgotten to mention that. I thought I would have to find the center of the forest myself?" Sakura inquired, entirely unsure of whether or not to feel relieved.

"No, no. You would most certainly die," the slug said conversationally, almost jovially. Sakura decided relief was not an appropriate emotion. "Guaranteed! So for now, I will be helping you. Now, we will begin without delay, before you go any further."

"Okay," Sakura said cautiously, still holding the slug an arm's length away from her. This slug seemed too casual about her demise for her liking. "Will this be the same training as on the top of Mount Myoboku?"

"You know of the training undertaken by the Toad Sage candidates?" the slug asked, and if it had eyebrows, one might be raised at her.

"My friend is a toad sage. He told me about it."

"You are friends with the host of the nine tails?"

"I forced it out of him. We were very close."

" _Were_?" the slug inquired, but did not pause for her answer. "Training here is both very different and very similar to the rituals performed atop Myoboku. We have no toad oil, nor will you be doing silly things like balancing atop pillars. We have some strict requirements - all sages must come to us as healers, for instance - and we are less strict in others; we do not need you to have boundless chakra levels. We can work around that. You are still likely to be hit with a stick, however."

"Oh."

"And things will be different for you than they were for your friend, as well. He had both advantages and disadvantages from having a tailed beast; while he has exponentially more chakra than you, making it easier for him, but more chakra is more difficult to control, making it easier for you. He was learning how to be a sage for two beings, and you must learn for only one."

"It took him nearly no time at all."

"It will take you much longer than it took him," the slug said solemnly. "And even after you leave here, being a sage is a lifelong journey. Now, are you ready to begin your training? We must not delay."

"Yes," Sakura straightened her back. "What do I need do?"

"For today, we will begin your training with with sage meditation and chakra processing."

"Meditation," Sakura repeated. She was going to train in relaxation? "That sounds nice."

"Your predecessor thought the same thing," the slug said fondly. "Until he very nearly drowned. And sage meditation is quite different from regular meditation."

"My predecessor?" she repeated. "Drowned?"

"Let us walk. Or rather, let you walk and let me be carried. I will guide you to the rocks of rumination, and then we will begin."

Sakura allowed the old slug to slither to her shoulder, where it settled contentedly on the strap of her pack, and began directing orders at her. Walk forward, turn left, turn right, over this fallen tree and under these branches.

As she walked, Sakura took in the forest around her. The ground was damp earth and moss, littered with leaves and mottled with sunlight. The air was humid but cool, and although there were recent signs of life adorning the dirt and the branches, the forest was completely silent.

"There aren't any birds in Shikkotsu?"

"Oh, there most certainly are! All sorts of birds."

"I can't hear any."

"Yes, they are all silent. Your chakra is loud and unrefined and it is causing a great disturbance in the forest, scaring the birds away from us. Your chakra is considered _quite_ rude."

Sakura accepted this silently; even though her chakra control was a point of pride, the slug must know better than her. She conducted the rest of the hike in silence.

When they reached a river, no wider than 20 meters across, the slug directed her to walk north along the bank for a short distance, promising her rest at the end. As she drew closer, her ears began to make out the sound of water thrashing against rocks. _Your predecessor thought the same thing, until he nearly drowned._ She shook the words out of her head. She was a strong swimmer.

"Those are the rocks of rumination," the slug said, peering directly ahead at the rocks at the base of the waterfall. "They are the place of the foundation of your training, and possibly the most sinister, unstable place in all of Shikkotsu. But for now, we will stop here, and we will hammer out some of the basics. Find a shady place and stop walking."

Sakura did as she was told and stopped under a tree along the river bank. They must have been walking for several hours; her feet ached.

"Have you ever meditated before, child?"

"Not really," Sakura answered honestly. She didn't consider herself to be the meditation type; her mind was always running, and she didn't see a problem with that.

"Why not? Your master meditates. She must have tried to teach you."

"I haven't had much time for any sitting and thinking."

"Sitting and thinking?" the slug laughed. "That is what you think meditating is? Then your master has failed you. Find a place you like, sit, and then I will tell you what meditation is."

Deciding not to respond to the slight against Tsunade, Sakura looked around; she settled on a patch of grass that was dappled with both sunlight and shade, only a few feet from the edge of the river. She settled there, plunking her pack down and then leaning against it. "Is this alright?"

"A good choice," the slug said approvingly. "I will tell you what meditation is. It is _thoughtless awareness._ It is the deep inner peace that can only be a product of the mind being calm and completely silent, but simultaneously alert. And when you do it for the purpose of channeling sage energy, it is called sage meditation. It is the key to unlocking your sage state."

"That all sounds pretty nice," Sakura admitted. "So how do I do it?"

"Before I tell you _how_ , I will tell you _why_ you must do it. You are going to be confronted with a chakra that will be overpowering to your own. Overpowering to your very existence. It will want to take over you, want to confiscate your mind and body and disintegrate you. So you must become so strong in mind that you can quell every wayward thought and control this new chakra, so that it wants the same things that you want."

"I don't love the pitch," Sakura said dryly, pushing her trepidation down. _Remember why you're here. Remember who you're here for_ , and images of her old friends swirled across her mind _._ "I don't want to, uh, disintegrate."

"So let's have a start, then!" the slug agreed. "Now, this is going to be a highly uncomfortable process. In order to achieve a true meditative state, you must be calm in the face of great fear, even more so than required for medical jutsu. You must be at peace with yourself. You, child, have arrived at no such peace."

Sakura could not argue with that.

"There is a deep undercurrent of despair, anger, and grief punctuating your being. The whole forest has known this since you stepped foot in our home. How can you expect to achieve calm and silence of the mind with those kinds of thoughts running through your head?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, slightly unsettled that the forest seemed to know much more about her than she did about it.

"You will confront those things at the rocks. But for now, we will cover the very basics of the process of sage meditation. Sit up straight, place your hands in your lap, and close your eyes."

She did as she was told.

"Good. I assume that Tsunade has taught you how to sense the position and condition of your own tenketsu?"

"Yes."

"That is good. I was beginning to wonder about that girl. So now, send a small pulse circulating through all of your tenketsu, and follow it from start to finish. Do not let it dissipate."

"All three hundred and sixty one?" Sakura asked, astonished.

"How are you going to conduct an unbroken stream through less than that?" the slug groused, impatient. "Just try it."

So she did. With her hands in her lap and her eyes closed, as she had been instructed, she let every one of her tenketsu flare up, like three hundred and sixty one stars creating a constellation of her body. As chakra was easiest to concentrate in the hands, she formed a small bolus of energy and began to guide it linearly through her tenketsu up her arm. She made it nearly to her shoulder before she could no longer hold the chakra together, and it fizzled away.

"That was not horrible!" the slug exclaimed when she opened her eyes. "You really do have excellent chakra control, for a human. Of course, your predecessor made it all the way through his head and across both arms on his first try, but he was much more talented than you, so don't be discouraged."

"Why would I be?" Sakura grumbled sarcastically, finding herself out of breath from the short exercise. "Who was my predecessor, again?"

"All in good time. Again!" the slug demanded.

So she closed her eyes again, and began to pull her chakra from the same speck on her fingertip. When she finally lost control, it was somewhere in her neck.

"That was eighteen more than last time," the slug commended her. "But the arms contain the most accessible tenketsu. You will find more difficulty when you encounter the midline torso."

"Any tips?" she gagged, her heart beating out of her chest. "I'm going to pop a vessel."

"No tips!" the slug said. "You will figure it out. I am going to go eat some leaves. You will continue to work on this until you are finished."

Sakura groaned, staring at the water in front of her. It seemed impossible. But she closed her eyes and tried again. Several hours passed before the slug came back for her. She was able to report that she had successfully painstakingly navigated the same ball of chakra through her head and arms, but no further. The slug offered her no help and bid her continue before going off in search of more leaves.

She worked through the night, and it wasn't until the sun started peeking above the trees that she finally understood what she needed to do.

For the first time, and with astonishing ease, she navigated through each and every one of her tenketsu. It took her less than a minute. Exhausted, she collapsed onto the soft grass, each of her tenketsu buzzing in unison, leaving her feeling electrified.

"Well done!" the slug cried when it found her some half an hour later, morning now in full swing. "How did you finally do it?"

Slowly, Sakura pulled her spine straight, sitting and gazing into the rushing water that had been her companion through the night. "I realized I needed to make a river."

"A river?"

"Instead of trying to force it through, I let it be carried by a stream. I'm used to diverting chakra streams from my seal, so when I did that... It was easy. Is that the right answer?"

"There is no correct answer, so long as you arrive at the correct outcome. Although that is only true in this instance, so don't take that to heart or anything. But now we may cross the river to the rocks."

Leaving her pack at the shore, Sakura waded through the waist-deep water with the slug on her shoulder. It directed her to a small, dark cove behind the waterfall, with hardly enough space to stand and water up to her mid-calf.

"Here you will make peace with yourself in order to achieve sage meditation," the slug said somberly, quietly. "This is a sacred space, imbued with the chakra of forces more ancient than any of us can know."

"That is, uh, pretty terrifying." Sakura said honestly. "What kind of ancient forces are we talking about? Like, sudden death forces?"

"This is not a trivial undertaking, Sakura. If you are unsure, it is better to turn back now," the slug warned. "Many before you have been driven insane at these very rocks, seeking exactly what you seek. Inner peace does not come peacefully. Not here."

"So there's only two options? Make peace or go crazy?" she hedged, not liking what she was hearing one bit.

"There is a third option. You can leave. But you will not be able to return to the sage path ever again."

"Maybe I should just go," Sakura said. She could become strong enough to complete her mission through other means; she didn't know what they were, but they must be there. Her heart ached too bitterly, too aggressively for it to ever settle; she knew she could contend with it for the rest of her life and it would not budge an inch.

"Child," the slug said, it's voice taking on a heartfelt sympathetic tone. "You do not have to forget your pain, or even stop feeling it, to be at peace. You do not have to forget your love or your grief. It may always be a part of you. But if you are to become a sage, you must accept these parts of yourself, and end the war that is in your soul, or it will consume you."

She rubbed the back of her neck, looking around the damp, dark cave. At once it seemed both innocuous and perverse, shallow but unfathomably deep. Something about it made her want to run and never look back; something else beckoned her inside, bade her curl into a ball and remain forever in the watery tomb.

Sakura closed her eyes. She thought of the things that had given her strength in the past few months. Ino's blond ponytail flitted across her mind, followed by Kakashi's single smiling eye, the glint of her first hitai-ate in the Konoha sun, Naruto's rough hand in Hinata's small one, the swish of Lee's ridiculous hair. The walls of the village she laid down her life for time and time again. The thick, dark eyelashes framing the black eyes of the only man she ever loved, unendingly and without reservation.

When she spoke, her voice was steady and resolute.

"How do I start?"


	9. blossom

A/N: This is a very… talky chapter. Not dialogue-y but monologue-y. Also, long. One of the reasons I write fic is so that I can spend more time with the characters - and I suspect that's a reason that a lot of people read fanfiction. No Sakura today, but check back within the next two weeks to see what our girl is up to. Enjoy!

* * *

Nara Shikamaru was on the floor of his family home, laying flat on his back and watching the old ceiling fan spin in circles. From the open window, he could hear the sounds of the ancient Nara compound trees rustling in the breeze. By all accounts, the day should have been a relaxing one.

It wasn't.

He had that _feeling._ That feeling he got when things were about to become very, very troublesome. _That feeling he gets when he's about to be useful,_ his father used to say. _That feeling he gets when he's about to make himself scarce._ Shikaku was right - all Shikamaru wanted to do right now was take a nice, long medical leave and mind his own damned business.

 _This isn't your business?_ He could hear his father ask, one eyebrow arched.

Shikamaru sighed and dragged one hand over his face. He wished he could talk to Shikaku now. The old man always listened well, didn't jump to conclusions, didn't scoff at his ideas. His father had been loyal to the village. But he was even more loyal to the truth, and to doing what was right. Once upon a time, Shikamaru thought those loyalties were one and the same.

It was majorly inconvenient how false that was turning out to be.

There were a lot of things that bothered Shikamaru about Sakura's death. From the day he heard of it, it didn't really sit right with him. But he tried not to think about it - not out of laziness, but out of _guilt._ Shikamaru felt somewhat guilty for how… underwhelmed he had felt, while Ino had sobbed on his shoulder and later when Naruto wept at her funeral. It's not that he didn't _like_ Sakura, or _care_ when she died. She was nice, if a little temperamental. He had seen her make a lot of bad, selfish decisions, like when she told Naruto she loved him, and then tried to go off and kill Sasuke herself after knocking out all of her friends. On the other hand, she would also sign off on five days of medical leave for him when he should only get three, and she was nice to him. But both Asuma and Shikaku had recently passed on, and Shikamaru felt nothing close to the grief he had experienced after losing his father and teacher. So she died, he felt sad, the world spun on.

For him it did, anyway. Others had it more difficult. Naruto and Ino both took it hard. Kakashi looked more and more tired with every passing day. And Sasuke… well, there had been something there. Not a huge something, but a something that couldn't be denied. And he looked lost without it.

And when Sasuke had been standing there next to him in front of her grave, Shikamaru felt weighed down with the implications of what he had seen - or _hadn't_ seen - and he couldn't help opening his mouth. Sasuke had been reticent, but Shikamaru supposed that was the man's way of being friendly.

Sure, shinobi died all the time. And she was a recent jonin, promoted after the war, and jonins are tools at the disposal of the village. But she was also a healer, and healers are valuable - especially after a war. Too valuable for solo missions. Keeping your medics alive kept the rest of your numbers up. The only reason for Sakura to be sent out was as medic support for the hokage, or on a mission they were sure that only _she_ could complete.

But she died. So she _couldn't_ complete it. And losing even one healer decreased the hospital's capacity by an order of magnitude, much less the _head medic_. Training a new healer took years before they could work unsupervised. And not to insult the dead… but what mission was there that only _Sakura_ could complete?

A sharp rapping at the door jolted him out of his thoughts.

"I know you're home, Shikamaru. Are you going to make me let myself in or are you going to get your lazy butt up for your hokage?" There was a frustrated edge to Kakashi's voice that Shikamaru was all too familiar with.

 _Ah, shit._ Shikamaru thought. _Was supposed to give my report yesterday…._

"Nara!" Kakashi snapped.

"Coming." Shikamaru called, sighing, and pulled himself up off the floor. When he answered the door, a seriously bedraggled Kakashi had a look in his eyes that was nothing short of murderous. Shikamaru stood aside to allow the rokudaime into his home.

"You and I are going to have a talk." Kakashi muttered. "What is this I hear about you spreading rumors?"

"Me? Rumors?" Shikamaru frowned. "That sounds… like a lot of work."

"Trust me, it is a lot of work." Kakashi deadpanned. "For me. If you've got a problem with something, you should be coming to _me,_ your _boss,_ not my former students."

 _So that's what this is about._ Word of his unease had gotten back to Kakashi quickly - and since Shikamaru had only really talked to Sasuke, it was an easily traced leak. "Sasuke?"

"Either one of them." Kakashi growled. "What's this about you poking your nose where it doesn't belong, either?"

"I didn't poke my nose in anywhere." Shikamaru held up his hands placatingly. "What did Sasuke tell you?"

"You had him in my office demanding to see classified mission reports and threatening to walk out of the village himself to go see the place that Sakura died. I don't think you understand the kind of ramifications that are in store for Sasuke if anyone else hears him talking that way."

"Wasn't it just you that heard him?" Shikamaru shrugged. "I didn't send him after you."

Kakashi sighed; his fingers found their usual perch on the bridge of his nose. Shikamaru could tell that he was doing his breathing exercises. "Think of Sasuke as a rehab patient. He's in recovery; he doesn't act rationally with this kind of information. And think of Naruto as the village idiot. He doesn't react rationally with any information."

"What does Naruto have to do with it?" Shikamaru frowned. Village idiot might not be too far off the mark, no matter how much he liked and respected the guy, but he wasn't sure how Naruto had become involved.

"Anything you tell Sasuke, you're telling Naruto. And vice versa. It's something we all have to keep in mind." Kakashi sighed.

"Right." Shikamaru decided he would have to find Naruto later. He'd already been considering it.

"But anyway, Shikamaru. Sakura - it doesn't make sense, I agree. Because it's senseless when someone so young and healthy dies so suddenly. Same with Asuma and your dad." Kakashi clapped Shikamaru on the shoulder. "I've seen it too many times. It's hard on all of us. And we try to justify it to ourselves, that it _had_ to be that way, so that we can understand it. But it's the life we signed up for - you, me, her - and she knew the risks."

"I just…." Shikamaru trailed off, and for the first time he wondered if he could _trust_ Kakashi. He wondered if it might be best to keep his gut feelings to himself. "Yeah. I guess I just don't want to believe she could be picked off like that."

Kakashi let his hand drop from Shikamaru's shoulder. "I promise you, she didn't go down without a fight. You know she wouldn't. I saw the aftermath for myself."

Shikamaru kept the frown off of his face. He'd heard that before - that's exactly what Kakashi had said when he dropped the news, now over… what, eight, nine months ago? And it's exactly the suspicion that had begun to nestle into his brain. Because Shikamaru had seen the aftermath for himself, too - or the _lack_ of aftermath. He let his shoulders fall before speaking again. "I know."

"What were you looking for, when you went to the place in her file? There were no witnesses that we could find."

"I thought maybe you missed something and I could find it myself." Shikamaru replied, knowing that was believable. He had a bad habit of thinking that way.

"Is that what Sasuke meant when he said you found nothing there?"

"I guess." Another shrug. Shikamaru resolved to strangle Sasuke later. Sharingan and exertion be damned. "I thought if I could find something that it would cheer Ino up a bit."

Kakashi sighed. "I wish there was more to find. It would cheer all of us up."

"Yeah." That's all Shikamaru could muster. He wasn't a great actor. He wasn't a great _anything._ Not until he needed to be.

"Next time you start feeling like something is off, come to me first. I value your intuition highly," Kakashi said seriously. "Higher than some of my own staff, if I'm honest. So don't keep me out of the loop."

"I won't." Shikamaru lied through his teeth.

With that, Kakashi took his leave, threatening a repeat visit if that mission report wasn't on his desk tomorrow morning. Shikamaru promised it would be, and shut the door behind him.

 _When it rains, it pours_ , he thought with a frown on his face. He watched the rokudaime walk away through his window.

He couldn't see that the frown Kakashi wore was just as deep as his own.

.

.

.

Sasuke pushed open the door to Sakura's old apartment and flicked on the light. His first impression was that it was aggressively grimy - he was immediately attacked by a combative cloud of dust.

His second impression was that the place had been ransacked.

Papers and books were scattered across the carpeted living room, curtains torn from the windows, cabinet doors ripped from their hinges and hanging askew in the tiny kitchen. It was all covered in a thick layer of gray dust – whatever had happened, it had happened long ago, and no one had returned since. There were no footprints, no handprints smearing the grime. Likely, this was exactly how she left it, he realized.

Her coffee table was cleaved in half, splintered wood sticking up like a shipwreck. Sasuke stared at the fractured table and realized that he was looking at something he'd seen before. It was the aftermath of a hurricane of a woman. He'd seen more than one table left like this in her wake - after losing a game of cards to a cheating Kiba, and at a restaurant after slapping the table in a fit of drunken giggles after Naruto did his best Gai impression.

Sasuke had been in her apartment the day before she left – the last he'd seen that table, it was intact, with Naruto's bare feet propped on it as they waited for Sakura to get ready for a dinner to casual to require her to take twenty minutes to brush her hair….  
Focus. He waved the memory away and concentrated on what a scene like this might mean.

The night she disappeared from his life, she had left her apartment angry. She came to his apartment scared. She left the village alone, spent three months doing God knows what, and then some fucking nobody ambushed her and left her body in pieces, giving up his own life in the process. That was where Sasuke's relevant information ended. If no one was going to tell him what happened after she left… maybe there were answers in the before.

 _You're going to try to be happy, right, Sasuke?_

He stared around the apartment, a frown creasing his face. There had to be something inside these walls that told him the secrets he desperately needed to know. There was something in her words that told him she knew she was going to die, she knew she was never going to see him again. _Try to be happy_. Just the day before she'd been dragging him and Naruto down the streets of Konoha, rambling about Shizune this and Ino that and Hinata said. That girl had been so different from the one that had shown up at his doorstep. What changed in that one day?

 _You're going to take this chance to have a real life, a happy one?_

Why would she say that? Did she know she wasn't going to be around to see it for herself? She was scared, he could tell that much.

 _Maybe get a painting or some throw pillows?_

She was too vibrant, too alive to just be cut down in the middle of nowhere, no fanfare, just a spurt of cold blood and a last stutter. He wondered if anyone heard her last words, if she even bothered to say them out loud.

Who wanted her dead? He could think of no specific enemies that she had, although he knew very little about her professional life outside of the hospital. Many people would capture a healer. Very few would kill them on the spot. So it was either personal or contracted. There was an enemy somewhere, an enemy to her or an enemy to the village. Sasuke felt that his life hinged on the difference.

He walked through the door that lead to her room. Pictures clung to the walls, held there with tape or thumbtacks, a mosaic of her short life. He stood in front of them, tracing his fingers over faces he knew, squinting at the ones he didn't. It was so easy to tell who she considered important - Naruto, Hinata, Lee, Ino, Tsunade. Shikamaru playing Shogi with a genin frustrated to tears. Shizune holding that strange rotund pig. A picture of Sakura and Kakashi on his first day as hokage, her tongue sticking out while the old man frowned underneath that ridiculous hat.

There were photographs of parties and dinners and awards he missed. Eyes changed in pictures before and after the war. Some people disappeared completely from the newer, glossier pictures - Asuma, Jiraiya, Neji - and some people appeared, like himself or Sai. Sasuke found his own face frowning out of an uncomfortable amount of pictures.

Looking at all of these familiar faces created a pit in his stomach. He wondered what kind of people they would all be now if they had not been forced to be child soldiers, competing amongst each other to be the most effective weapon of mass destruction. Maybe, in another life, in another world, they could have been… bakers, accountants, shop-owners? None of those things sound right to Sasuke. Like him, they had all been born for this exact existence.

And they didn't all make it out alive.

He turned away from the photographs - he didn't want to look at them any longer. He went to her desk - it was undoubtedly the desk of a very busy person. A calendar hung on the wall, still stuck on the month she left. He went back several months before her death; days were marked with work or Hinata's birthday or meeting. There were several long swathes of empty days where she had left on missions. He studied them carefully; there was no pattern that he could deduce.

The _Atlas of Amputations and Limb Deficiencies_ sat on her desk, riddled with sticky notes. He opened it to a bookmarked page; it was gibberish to him, but by her apparent color-coded highlighting, it made sense to her. _Nonthrombotic… arteriovenous…_ he shut the book. If anything there was of interest to him, he wasn't going to understand it anyway.

She was not the type to keep a diary. No ninjas kept diaries - it was against protocol. He had no hope of finding anything like that as he thumbed through her planner. _Nothing, nothing, nothing._

But then, something on her desk caught his eye - a scroll peeking out from underneath a stack of ruffled papers. He recognized the color of the binding - blue scrolls were profiles. They could only be checked out from the Hokage's personal library with special mission clearance. Those clearances didn't come easy - profiles contained every inch of information that the village had on an individual.

Sasuke pulled it out from underneath the stacks of chart notes and doodles. He peeled it open with a fair amount of difficulty - it seemed that opening scrolls was an activity exclusive to two-handed beings. He felt slightly discriminated against.

As soon as it was open, he nearly dropped it on the floor.

Orochimaru's snakelike face was staring back at him. He didn't read any further - he already knew everything that could possibly be contained in the scroll. Maybe more.

Why would she have the clearance to get a profile scroll on Orochimaru? They should have nothing to do with each other. He _hoped_ they had nothing to do with each other. Sasuke had not had any contact with Orochimaru following the war, and he hadn't really had any designs on changing that. It appeared that his plans might have to change soon.

His hand clenched around the scroll – even if it wasn't an answer, it was something. He shoved it in his pocket, making sure its blue edges were completely concealed. If anyone was found with a blue scroll they shouldn't have, punishment was to be stripped of rank. If _Sasuke_ was found with a blue scroll that he shouldn't have, well…. better to not wonder. He had what he came for.

As he left her apartment, Sasuke wondered what kind of hole would be left in the world if he were to die. A very small one, if any at all, no doubt. He closed the door, the scroll pressing against his thigh, and walked home with his head down.

When he finally got home, Naruto was standing at his door, arms crossed, expression sour. "Where were you? I've been waiting here for like, half an hour."

Sasuke, feeling equally unpleasant and restless, lied. "None of your business."

"Man, that is so typical of you. Anyway, open the door. I've got news."

He let Naruto in and they sat on the couch. Sasuke looked at him expectantly, knowing that Naruto needed to invitation to start talking. In fact, Sasuke knew there was nothing in the world that could stop Naruto from opening his mouth if he felt like it.

"Shikamaru says Kakashi ripped him a new asshole because you couldn't keep your fat mouth shut."

Sasuke frowned. "The same way he ripped you a new one when were genin? Two finger death poke?"

"Was that you making a joke? It's not funny. I'm damaged goods." Naruto complained.

"I thought it was funny."

"That's because you don't have a sense of humor. Anyway, Shikamaru wanted me to come tell you that you're an idiot, and to lay low for a while."  
"Why wouldn't he come tell me that himself?"

"First of all, you have a bad temper. Second of all, I - we - think it would be a better idea if you and Shikamaru weren't seen talking a whole bunch, now that you totally blew it to Kakashi. Because now if Kakashi hears that you and Shikamaru are getting all buddy-buddy, he's going to be suspicious that you guys are up to something."

"Are we up to something?" Sasuke asked, trying to keep his voice casual, picking stray lint off of his pant leg.

Naruto shrugged. "We all just want to know the truth, don't we? If the village is playing politics behind our back and it got our friend killed, then I think we have a right to know. And nobody's just gonna come out and tell us, so…"

Sasuke nodded in agreement, still focusing on the lint on his clothing. He worried that if he looked Naruto in the eye, the idiot would be able to tell that Sasuke felt… well, he felt relieved. He felt relieved to have someone on his side, someone who didn't think he should just get on with his life. Someone else cared as much as he did. Someone else thought something just wasn't right.

"So here's what Shikamaru thinks is best. You lay low for a while, and stop bugging Kakashi so much. Don't make a show out of it, like, don't just ignore him. And then Shikamaru is going to do some thinking, and then when the time's right… I guess he'll clue us in."

"Does he have any sort of plan?" Sasuke inquired, leaning forward. "I don't think it's going to be as easy as just walking out of the gates."

"He thinks he can get us out. All three of us. But separately - it's going to take him a while. He's going to leave on a mission, and then I am, and then we are going to find a low-key way to get you out. And you have to start laying low with Kakashi. He's suspicious."

"Eventually my probation will be up and I can leave the village whenever I want."

"Do you really think that they're going to let you out just to cause more trouble?" Naruto snorted.

"I don't cause trouble."

"Only, like, five years of my life worth of trouble. Anyway, let's go get some food, yeah? Your treat, since you made me wait."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. _Not like you were invited_. But he didn't say anything - instead, he stood and followed his friend out the door, and maybe a part of him was actually looking forward to a meal shared between friends. Maybe he needed this.

Not that he'd ever tell anyone. When Naruto tried to trip him on his way out, Sasuke casually smacked him upside the head. He felt twelve years old again, and for once, that wasn't the worst thing.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! If you want, go check out my new fic called Now More Than Ever. It's an AU where Sakura follows Sasuke home the night of the massacre and witnesses Itachi's carnage. I promise it will not be a rehash of the canon manga events.

Love reading your reviews and starting a dialogue about the story. Please let me know your thoughts. Have a great day!


	10. memories

Sakura was standing in the freezing water of the cave, the slug still perched on her shoulder. She shivered involuntarily – the sinister energy of the cave was undeniable, and the promise of ancient forces and spirits swirled around her head.

"This will be painful." the slug said quietly and unhelpfully. "Chakra purification is as unpleasant an experience as your species can stand. Fortunately, you only have to live through it once, and your mind will be occupied with other things."

"Fortunately?" Sakura choked.

"Indeed. You will have to confront a great many truths about yourself. To rid yourself of your malignancies, you have to meet the demons that live inside of you, and you must then tame them so they have no hope of controlling you."

"I don't have demons."

"We all have demons." The slug says gently. "Even now, the cave is drawing them out of you. I can feel it. We should make a start before they break free and destroy us both."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably, rocking back and forth on her heels. It was undeniable that _something_ was happening to her – she had the horrible feeling that something was crawling under her skin. She rubbed her arms, trying to warm herself, but the cold was coming from within. Her shivering had become uncontrollable, and she was becoming lightheaded.

"Shall I explain the process to you?"

"Please."

"For purification, the cave will first draw all of your chakra out of your body. Normally, this would be a death sentence, having all of your chakra drained, but it will be immediately replaced with natural energy, which you will circulate through your tenketsu, the way you have just learned. By doing this, your tenketsu will be purified, and you will then be able to create purified chakra as well as manipulate natural energy."

"The natural energy won't turn me into a slug?" Sakura asked apprehensively – she remembered that Naruto had very nearly spent the rest of his life as a toad thanks to the effects of uncontrolled natural chakra.

"No. As I said, becoming a sage in Shikkotsu is very different to becoming a sage in Myoboku. The nature is different here, and the nature of the energy is different as well. Do you remember the most important part of your medic training?"

"Don't get killed."

"No. Well, yes, but no. The most important part is that you _remain calm._ If you are not calm, you cannot control your chakra well enough to direct it for healing. With natural energy, it is even more important that you can provide a calm environment, or it will incinerate you. And that is where the search for self-acceptance comes in."

"Stay calm or be incinerated. Got it."

"No, no. You are not understanding. While your tenketsu are undergoing the conversion, you will be inside the planes of your own mind, seeking inner peace. While you are doing this, I will be sitting right here on your shoulder, controlling the natural energy so that it does not kill you. The hope is that when you awaken, you will have gained the serenity to control it yourself."

 _What have I gotten myself into?_ Sakura thought, not for the first time since arriving in the forest. She was unconvinced that this was a survivable undertaking. The slug seemed to understand her trepidation.

"Have more faith in yourself, child. No time like the present."

"No time like the present." Sakura repeated, trying to convince herself. "Let's start, then."

"Good. Sit in the water. Don't look at me like that," the slug warned. "Go ahead, sit. Criss cross applesauce, as you humans like to say! I said don't look at me like that. Good girl. The cold will pass. Can you swim, by the way?"

"When I'm conscious," Sakura muttered, clenching her teeth. The cold did _not_ pass. It wracked her body in convulsions, pulsing ice through her veins. She was submerged up to her navel now, and her toes were numb.

"Good, good. The last one nearly drowned. Now, elbows back. Pull your navel toward your spine…. My god, you call that posture? Palms facing up on your thighs, please. Feel all the points of your body that are connected to the earth. These are your anchors."

"I feel them." The rocky floor of the cave pressed into her thighs uncomfortably. She worried about hypothermia and blood circulation, the medic in her unwilling to rest.

"On my signal, you will begin to cycle your chakra, the way you just learned. It will hurt, but you will not feel anything at all after a few moments. Your soul will fall into the hands of the spirits, and your chakra will be pulled out of your body and into the water."

"Am I going to die?" Sakura whispered, and her voice was afraid. She could no longer feel her limbs, the cold giving way to the numbness of deadened nerves.

"Certainly not." The slug assured her. "I am right here, and I won't leave you. I will be keeping you alive myself. This is hardly my first cave cleansing. On the count of three."

She nodded, her throat aching too much for words. Something inside of her wanted out, something violent and sick with murderous intentions.

"One."

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut.

"Two."

She clenched her hands into fists.

"Three."

She began circulating her chakra, pushing the energy through her tenketsu. At the same moment, she felt the wriggling under her skin strengthen, like a million white-hot maggots had forced their way into her veins. She gasped, gulping stale air into her lungs, and forced the current of her chakra to continue its flow. The water around her legs began to glow faintly, the pale green effervescence that she had seen thousands of times before, and she felt herself growing weak.

The glow grew stronger as she grew fainter, and she felt the slug begin to pour its own foreign chakra into her. She grasped at it but it wasn't hers and she couldn't hold it, only feel it as it began to circulate through her tenketsu in place of her own chakra that was trickling into the water. Her shoulders began to droop.

A dull scream began to ring in her ears, intensifying with every moment. She thought it might be her own, but soon realized it couldn't be – it was made up of hundreds of voices, beckoning her beyond the pale, coaxing her towards the abyss.

 _Do not resist_ , Sakura could vaguely hear the slug whisper. With one final gasping breath of reality, she closed her eyes and allowed the voices to pull her under the black water.

Suddenly, she could no longer feel the cold swirling around her navel, or the rocks pressing into her skin. She could not feel her life force draining out of her. She felt comfortable, warm, like she was underneath a soft blanket.

She opened her eyes, and was greeted with the sight of absolutely nothing, as if she had opened her eyes to the darkest night. She could still feel her body, run her hands down her arms, draw air into her lungs, and she could tell she wasn't blind – there was just nothing to see.

"Haruno Sakura, who are you?" A voice asked, startling her. It was a multi-hued sound with the timbre and tone of many different voices coming together in perfect harmony.

Sakura, confused, had no answer. The voice very clearly knew her name – so why ask who she was? "Um. I'm Haruno Sakura. Like you just said, kind of."

"You are a lost child." The voice corrected her. While it did not sound unkind, Sakura could not mistake it for friendly. At best, it was indifferent, and it sent shivers down her spine. "You will have a better answer for me soon, I hope. You are not the first to come looking for me. Many have come here seeking exactly what you seek. But if you succeed, you will be only the second."

She swallowed. She was hardly the type of girl to succeed where others could not.

"If you have come to me to learn who you are, so that you may make peace with it, then you have quite the journey lying ahead of you. There are many contradictions that live inside of your soul, little girl."

"Who are you?" Sakura asked, afraid. _Ancient forces,_ she remembered. A thing not to be trifled with.

The room rumbled, low and powerful – was the voice _laughing_ at her? "I can see you, Haruno Sakura. You can hide as long and as far as you wish, but I will always see you, now that you have come to me. There are _legions_ within you – as many are perverse and corrupt as are saccharine and delightful. And they are waiting to eat you alive."

Sakura swallowed. She regretted asking. She did not feel as though she contained _legions._ But as she thought so, she began to feel a _rattling_ inside the hollow space her bones that began to burn and expand.

"Are you going to let them out, Sakura? Are you going to give them what they want?" The voice taunted, and she could almost hear greasy lips pulling taut over fangs as tall as a man, smiling sickly down at her. "Or are you going to give into me, and just let me consume you now? You could save yourself a lot of heartache, you know – it will happen either way. Just come to me, and I can make you _safe."_

Sakura shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, sinking to her knees. She knew the voice was lying – whatever lay in its claws, it was not safety – but it _tempted_ her in a way she had never been tempted before. The way a fish can't resist the shiny flash of a baited hook, she wanted to flick her little fins in its direction, to find out what it was like to be truly consumed.

 _No._ She felt the fire crawling its way up her throat, looking to escape through her lips. She shook her head, pressing her hands against her mouth to keep it shut. The rattling in her bones had expanded into convulsions that jarred her thoughts. Flashes of red and yellow began to flicker in her periphery. _Don't give in._ Somehow she knew that if she let _it_ escape, it might never fit back in. Sakura cradled her head in her hands, her skull threatening to split in two, her eyes squeezed shut. She could hear her bones cracking and her blood seeping out from underneath her fingernails, burning hot against her face.

" _Let them out, girl!_ " the voice roared, its taunting edge gone, its indifference replaced with a pure anger that could rip a world apart.

She could not hold it in any longer – her skin was swelling, bones splintering, brain melting, eyes disintegrating from their sockets. She knew that she could end the pain if she would just open her mouth, and let them out. But a different kind of pain was waiting on the other side, she knew. _Could it be worse than this?_

 _Yes._

Sakura screamed. As her mouth opened, everything that had been lacerating her insides poured out into the blackness, and her skin shrunk back around her muscles, her bones straightened, her eyes healed, the smell of blood disappeared.

The voice cackled. "You've done it now, girl. You'd better go find them before they find you."

The darkness consumed her consciousness.

..

* * *

..

* * *

..

When she woke, she was lying flat on her back and staring at a dusky purple sky. It was streaked with sunset pinks and blue clouds and the bright twinkle of early stars. Her palms were grasping handfuls of cool, damp grass and tall trees dotted the periphery of her vision.

"Ahem."

When she turned her head, there were no ancient forces, but a tiny girl no older than twelve, with messy, scraggly blush-pink hair covering her bright green eyes, wearing a familiar red dress and staring right at her. Sakura sat up so fast that black spots converged on her vision. She blinked once, twice, and shook her head.

The girl mirrored her, sitting up and crossing her arms. "Are you just gonna lie there or what?"

"Why am I – who are you?" Sakura frowned. "And why are you me? Where are we? What happened to the – the voice?"

"I don't know about any voices, but… You don't remember me?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"I'm you."

"No. _I'm_ me. You're… you're something that damn forest conjured up to mess with my head, as if that horrid voice wasn't bad enough. So go away. I'm trying to do something here."

"What're you trying to do?"

"Make inner peace." Sakura grumbled, getting to her feet and dusting bits of grass off of her pants. "Face my demons, or something like that. I think I just threw them up a few minutes ago and now I have to go find them, so if you'll excuse me, I don't have time to babysit hallucinations."

The girl also stood, and immediately planted her fists on her hips in a pose Sakura found embarrassingly familiar. "How d'you know I'm not one of those demons? And excuse me, did you just say you _threw up?"_

Sakura looked around. She had somehow woken up in the middle of a quiet meadow surrounded by trees – trees she knew. She knew exactly where she was. This was the third training ground, where she and her teammates had tried and failed to take a set of bells from Kakashi.

Sakura started walking west, where she knew Konoha was waiting for her.

"Uh, _hello?"_ the girl grabbed Sakura's hand. "Is this how you greet your old friend? Wow. I grew up to be a total bitch, didn't I?"

"What'd you just say?" Sakura frowned, shaking her hand out of the child's grip. "You're awfully rude."

"You appreciated my rudeness when I kicked that _pig_ Ino out of our head during the chunin exams." The child said haughtily, flipping her short pink hair over her shoulder.

Sakura stopped walking and turned to stare at the girl, squinting. "No."

"Yep." The girl beamed. "It's me. Inner Sakura."

"Oh no." Sakura groaned, smacking her forehead. "That's even worse. I thought I got rid of you _years_ ago."

"Nope. You just started ignoring me, which was _totally_ bitchy. Like _, really_ _totally._ Anyway, since you're my responsibility, and you ended up here, you're stuck with me."

"Where is here, exactly? This can't really be Konoha." Sakura gestured at the trees surrounding them.

"Let's you and I walk." The girl reached up and took Sakura's hand, pulling her through the forest. As Sakura expected, the trees eventually parted into a pathway with the village gates at the end. The girl chattered the entire way – _annoying,_ Sakura thought with an almost-smile.

"So, where is here?" The girl asked Sakura as the training grounds began to melt into the outskirts of the village. "You tell me."

"This is Konoha. This is where I… where we grew up." Sakura amended, looking around her, savoring the familiar warm breeze rustling the tiny leaves on the trees, swirling them around the air. "This is home."

"And we love being home, don't we? But you haven't been home in a while."

"No," Sakura agreed. "I haven't. Where are you taking me?"

"I have something to show you." The girl said, pulling Sakura along through the familiar streets of Konoha. Strings of paper lanterns hung between buildings, and a warm glow emanated from every window, shop or home. But there were no people. Sakura peered into the windows of shops and restaurants – there was food on the tables, but no one to eat it _. A ghost town?_ She shuddered. Lazy music twisted through the streets, and she felt like she had known the tune in a past life, maybe. It's familiarity was a melancholy one.

The pair continued on, passing the old ramen restaurant that Naruto had dragged her to hundreds of times over the years, and she found herself staring up at faces that were carved into the cliffside. She recited each of their names in her head out of habit – _Hashirama, Tobirama, Sarutobi, Minato, Tsunade, Kakashi._

"Crazy that they let Kakashi-sensei up there." The younger girl sniffed. "After how badly he ignored us, I can't believe they put him in charge of everything."

Surprised, Sakura glanced at her younger self. She had forgotten the anger and resentment that she used to harbor for her old teacher. "He did his best, you know. He was battling his own demons."

"Still. We could have been something great, couldn't we? Maybe if he had given us the time of day instead of giving all of his attention to Naruto and Sasuke, none of this would have ever happened. We could have stopped Sasuke from leaving."

"Nothing was going to stop Sasuke from leaving." It was a truth that Sakura had been forced to admit to herself over and over, but that didn't make it sting any less.

The girl shrugged. "We'll never know now, I guess. Anyway, we're here."

Sakura averted her gaze from the carved faces to the building in front of her, and she gasped. She recognized the tiny house and its red painted shutters and small garden. The paint on the front door was peeling, and the gold doorknob was brassy from years of young and old hands turning it, returning from the academy or missions or jobs. Her mother was always after her father to repaint it, but he thought it added character. This was her childhood home.

"Go inside." The little girl nudged. "No need to knock. This is your house, isn't it?"

"I, uh…" Sakura said hesitantly, resting her hand on the old doorknob. "What's inside?"

"I don't know. Go find out." And with that, Sakura was pushed inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

"Sakura, honey, is that you?" She heard her mother's voice call from the kitchen. "How was training?"

As she opened her mouth to answer, a voice behind her beat her to it. "It was good, Mom. What's for dinner?"

Sakura turned to see that her younger self had followed her into the house. The young girl winked at her older self, and then pushed past her into the foyer. Sakura trailed behind her.

Her mother was sitting at the counter, considerably younger than Sakura knew her to be; fewer wrinkles lined her face, and there was no gray in her hair. Mebuki glanced at her young daughter and smiled, paying no attention to the older Sakura behind her. "What did you learn at training today?"

"Who cares? Sasuke is never gonna like me back." The young Sakura grouched, and collapsed dramatically into a chair beside her mother. "He won't even pay attention to me at _all_."

"Maybe because he's busy paying attention to the lessons," her mother chided gently. "Maybe you should try that, and let your smarts speak for itself."

"Sasuke's a good enough ninja for the both of us." Sakura grumbled. "It's not ladylike to fight. Plus, boys _like_ to rescue girls."

Sakura watched as her younger self continued to complain about the uselessness of learning how to throw kunai properly and how difficult it was to get closer to Sasuke when Naruto was always tagging along, being loud and competing for attention. Her mother nodded along patiently, not really listening.

Sakura wanted to shake the young girl. She wanted to scream. _Be better than that! Listen to what Kakashi is trying to teach you. Don't be more interested in Sasuke than your own life. Be nicer to Naruto. Be something _, but don't be this useless!__

As if she could hear her, the young girl turned to look at Sakura with a smile on her face. "It's so frustrating that you can't change the past, isn't it?"

The walls around her began to melt, and the young girl and her mother disappeared. Sakura found herself staring at her own reflection through a gold-framed mirror.

She hardly recognized herself. Her green eyes were dull, her cheeks were hollow, her arms thin and pale and roped with muscle. Her blush-pink hair was straggly, uncombed, cut unevenly with a kunai. The simple black uniform she wore seemed to swallow her alive. Her sallow face looked like it hadn't smiled in months, like it hadn't spoken a word in weeks. She looked… unhealthy, sick, lost.

 _Is this what I look like now?_ Sakura hadn't seen her reflection in so long - she had purposefully avoided it, relying on genjutsu when she needed to change her appearanceShe raised her fingers to the mirror to touch her reflection. As soon as her fingertips touched the cold surface, the mirror shattered out of the frame.

Behind the mirror was a window, held in place by the same gold frame; through it, she could still see herself. But a different version, in a different place – this one looked healthy, happy, with rosy cheeks and a bounce in her step, wearing long white coat and standing in front of the Konoha hospital. And it wasn't a reflection – this healthy, smiling Sakura waved at her gaunt counterpart through the window, and flounced away to start her shift.

The mirage did not end there. Images continued to flash in front of her, images of happiness and optimism and achievement of a _different_ Sakura.

She was faced with what she knew could have been the future; what could have been, what was _likely_ to have been. A career, a wedding, a family; a simple death in her old age surrounded by loved ones. But then, the scenery changed, and she was shown the alternative. A lonely, blood-spattered existence ending the way it was lived - desolate, bitter, forsaken. And when that life ended, it would switch back to Konoha, where she watch herself live other fulfilled and enjoyed lives, and then back to the icy wilderness where she spent her days on the run. There were as many hard endings as soft, as many slit throats and crushed skulls as quiet passings. She lived each of these lives inside of her old childhood home or in the snowy cabin in the mountains, watched herself go through so many different versions, steeped in contentment or rent with hardship.

They all ended in death – oftentimes gruesome and bloody. She watched these without flinching. It was what came after that hurt her the most.

Her friends lives went on without her; they had children and grandchildren and not one of them knew about her. Her grave sat in silence year after year. Fake as it was, Sakura found herself hurt that not one person visited her. When she finally died, Kakashi only heard about it months after the fact, pulled out her file, stamped it, and put it away; it was never taken out again.

Then, when Kakashi had put the file away for the last time, the gold frame and mirror disappeared. She found herself back inside the tiny living room of her old home, standing alone except for Inner Sakura, who was sitting on the old ratty couch, reading a book about understanding young men. She looked up at her older self and smiled. "Well, what'd you think?"

Sakura said nothing as tears began to stream from her eyes and she sank to her knees. She was exhausted – she had watched for what felt like years, each life different from the last, either happy and loved at home or wretched and dying alone in varying and horrible degrees of injury. For a long time, she cried as hard as she could. And then for a long time, she was quiet. She thought of everything that she had seen, the good and the bad, the long life in Konoha and the short one in the snowy cabin in the mountains.

"Were those my only options?" She said quietly, staring up at the ceiling. "Since I can't go back home, am I bound to the alternative?"

"Well, no." The young Sakura said, sitting on her hands. "It's not like I was telling the future or anything. I just took your own thoughts and showed you what they look like in real life."

"What?" Sakura wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and glanced at the little girl.

"You're not really doomed to anything, are you? Even if you can never come home, why does that mean that you have to resign yourself to hopelessness? There's no telling the future, Sakura. Nothing is set in stone."

"Because I… How am I supposed to be happy, with everything I had to leave behind? When everyone thinks I'm dead, when nothing I do means anything?"

"Just because no one knows what you're doing, it has to be nothing? What happened to us, Sakura? You used to listen to me. You used to listen to _yourself._ You used to trust that you knew the way. Is this all it takes to break you? Making you start over?"

Sakura was silent, not knowing how to respond. Of course it had broken her – leaving home, leaving everything and everyone that she had loved and that had loved her. Seeing what could have been, and how ardently she longed for it – so much that her lungs hurt, that the pain in her gut could kill her, that her heart might as well stop beating - what was left for her, if not that lonely death that nobody even knew happened?

"Then maybe you're as weak as you think you are." The young girl said quietly. "You made this sacrifice yourself. You know you'll never have any of it back. Things won't be like we hoped they would be. But it doesn't have to be _bad._ There can still be meaning, can't there?"

Sakura stared at the young girl. She didn't look so young anymore – in fact, she had grown significantly older without Sakura noticing. No longer a twelve year old, the person sitting in front of her was the same age as Sakura herself, green eyes bright and healthy.

"Couldn't you listen to me?" She said softly, taking Sakura's hand in her own. "Couldn't we learn to trust each other? And couldn't we still make something good out of this lifetime? Everything you saw – you can avoid that. But you have to want to do it. Go be the new slug sage, kick some ass. Find other things to do to help Konoha, even. And don't ignore me anymore."

"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad." Sakura squeezed the hand offered to her, and she could feel herself almost smiling. She hadn't smiled in – how long now? She hadn't been counting.

"So can you accept that the past is the past? But the future – the future is yours, and you should still do your best. Find meaning some other way."

Her lips broke into an actual smile then. "Yeah. I think I can do that."

Sakura let herself be pulled to her feet by the mirror image of herself, who was smiling softly. "Then there's only one more thing for you to make peace with."

"What?"

The reflection of herself dropped Sakura's hand and gestured to the front door of their old home. "He's waiting for you out there."

"He?" Sakura asked, confused. The door opened of its own accord, and Sakura walked toward it uncertainly.

"Go." Inner Sakura encouraged her. "It's not the last you'll see of me. Not by a long shot. Go make your peace."

Sakura slowly walked to the front door and turned the doorknob; she found herself standing outside of the house, on the front steps, staring out into the garden her mother had so diligently cared for, and the walkway that led away from her home.

She found herself standing outside of the house, on the front steps, staring out into the garden her mother had so diligently cared for, and the walkway that led away from her home.

On that walkway stood Sasuke, wearing simple black clothing and a frown on his face as he looked around at his surroundings.

Sakura quickly shut the door and turned back to face Inner Sakura. "What's he doing here? He's not... he's not really here, is he? Like, he's just like you, he's coming from inside of my head, right?"

"No, he's really here," the girl said sweetly. "His body is not, but his spirit is. How else are you going to get any answers? Go. Ask your questions. Be honest; he won't remember a thing when he wakes up. It will be replaced with a dream of his childhood, or perhaps of nothing at all."

Sakura huffed, conflicted and confused - he was here, somehow, and she knew she wouldn't be able to leave this dream state until she had talked to him and settled whatever hold he still had on her. She would have to trust that he would forget - _strange magic lives in this forest_ , the slug had said. _Strange magic indeed._

She turned back towards the door and placed a hand on the knob, turning it slowly. When she glanced back, her younger self had disappeared, and she was alone once more.

With a deep breath, she opened the door.

"Sasuke?"

* * *

First off, sorry that I didn't update when I promised. I actually got off my butt and hiked the High Sierra Trail, which was an exhausting but very rewarding trip of isolation that provided me with much inspiration, and then my job title and responsibilities increased tenfold (I work in medicine), But I love this story, and I love you guys, and I love reading your reviews. I spend so much time perfecting what I write that it just tickles me pink when y'all take the time out of your days to write me something back, and I re-read your comments often. Hope you're all taking care of yourselves out there. See you next time!

P.S. Expect the next chapter to be very SasuSaku heavy ;)


	11. no such thing as a slug sage

_**chapter 11: no such thing as a slug sage**_

 _Sasuke was having a strange dream. Of that, he was sure._

 _It was dusk. He was standing in the middle of a street in Konoha, in front of a modest family home - one he'd seen before, maybe, because he thought he might recognize it from somewhere. It was vague and imperfect in its familiarity - like it had been in the background of a photograph that he used to keep in his pocket._

 _He looked up at the sky, and although the stars were out, he couldn't recognize any of the constellations. This was how he knew he was dreaming. A gentle mist rolled around his ankles, shimmering and opaque; it swirled nebulously with his movements as he took an uncertain step toward the house._

 _The air was warm and sweet, fragrant from the blossoming jacaranda trees that lined the sidewalks. A light breeze rustled through the leaves, and he turned around, frowning._

 _He had a distinct feeling that he was being watched. The homes behind him were dark, empty, and the street dropped off into blackness after a few feet, like his mind couldn't place what was beyond the particular spot where he stood. Sasuke felt that there was something in that darkness, something sinister and angry and hungry. He wasn't worried – he doesn't know the last time he felt that he was truly in danger. Not since Kaguya, anyway. If someone was watching him, they could come for him at their leisure. He would be ready._

" _Sasuke?" a voice in front of him asked. He turned his eyes back toward the tiny home._

 _Sakura was standing in front of him, in the doorway of the house. Light spilled out from the open door, illuminating the small garden and picket fence that guarded the house._

 _His frown deepened. It wasn't the Sakura he knew. Not the one from his memories. This Sakura had lost the softness that she had carried with her, replaced by hard lines and dark circles under her eyes. She was thinner than she had ever been in life, and her hair was shorter, cut carelessly around her jaw, and her nails were longer._

 _But somehow, she felt more real than ever as she took an uncertain step toward him. She glanced behind her, as if she was looking for something that was there only moments before. Maybe she could also feel the eyes of an unwanted observer on her back. But the distraction was momentary; her eyes were back on Sasuke within seconds._

" _You're really here," she said softly._

 _Her voice cut into him like a knife for how tangible it was. Voices were the one thing his memory lost first, unable to recall the murmur of his mother or the stern tones of his father mere days after their murder. He was better with images, his sight being the tool he relied on the most. But Sakura sounded as real as if she were resurrected from the dead, as if she were more than just dissolute brain waves rattling around his sleeping skull. Even though she looked different, she sounded the exact way that he could never remember._

 _She closed the distance between them in a matter of steps, and then she was throwing her arms around his neck, embracing him._

" _It's so good to see you," she whispered. Her skin was warm, soft, and she smelled clean, like warm earth and fire. Where they touched, it felt like he was struck by lightning - he would know; he knows the exact feeling of lightning coursing through his veins and over his skin. "It's so good to see you, Sasuke."_

 _He wanted to tell her it was good to see her too - even if she looked like she hadn't slept or ate in months, even if he was just dreaming. It was so good to see her._

 _When she pulled away from him, he studied her, trying to determine what it was that made her seem so… corporeal. She was wearing the standard black mission garb, but it was tattered and threadbare, and her eyes - her eyes were different._

 _Her eyes looked like his own. Caged, guarded. He hadn't known that her eyes could look like that._

" _What are you looking at?" she asked, glancing down at her clothes. She was wearing the standard black mission garb, but they were tattered, threadbare, as if she'd worn nothing else for months on end. "I didn't get to pick the outfit, if that's it. It's what I was wearing when I got… here."_

 _She finished her sentence with a nebulous wave of her hand, as if to say that_ here _is a loosely defined term._

" _Where is here?" Sasuke asked. She looked just as startled by his voice as he was by hers.  
_ " _This is where I grew up," she said, turning back to look fondly at the house behind her. "My parents' home. But beyond that… I don't really know where here is at all."_

 _Sasuke frowned - a strange answer, even for a dream. but he had given up on trying to understand his dreams. His only undertaking was to recover from them once they were done._

" _You and I have a lot to talk about," she said gently. "Don't we?"_

 _She extended her hand to him; an offer. He hesitated before taking it. Her hand was impossibly warm, impossibly soft, and sent the same electricity through his skin._

 _As soon as they touched, the street melted away._

 _They were standing in the middle of training ground three, where Team Seven had failed the bell test together._

" _The training grounds," she breathed, letting go of his hand to turn and take in their surroundings. She ran her fingers over one of the three tree stumps where Naruto had spent an afternoon tied up, where the three of them had eaten lunch together._

 _When she turned back to him, her eyes had softened slightly. She leaned against one of the three stumps._

" _Like I said, you and I have a lot to talk about before I can get out of here," she said, patting the stump next to her, an invitation. Sasuke leaned against it, mirroring her. She was so close now that he could see the tiny blonde hairs on her face, the mottled green of her irises, the dark fan of her eyelashes. "Don't we?"_

 _It's just the kind of dumb question she would have asked him when she was still alive. The kind of question that always left him at a loss for words, because he was never sure if he was supposed to answer or not._

" _You tell me," he said. Just the kind of dumb answer he would give her when she was still alive._

" _I want to understand," she murmured, and her eyes turned to the stars. "I want to understand all of it. I've never been able to figure it out on my own. So would you explain it to me, Sasuke? Please?"_

" _Explain what, exactly?"_

" _I have so many questions," she said plainly. "And I don't think I can leave until you answer them honestly. So for once… can we be honest with each other? "_

 _Sasuke thought back to how many times he wished he had just been honest with her while she was still alive. "Okay."_

" _Why did you leave?" she asked candidly. "Why did you leave the village when we just wanted to help you? Don't you think it would have been easier if you'd stayed?"_

 _Sasuke turned his own eyes up towards the constellations. Her questions confused him - he had never thought that it was something that needed explaining. It made perfect sense to him, so why shouldn't it have made sense to everyone else? And if it didn't make sense, well… he'd never felt that he owed his answers to anyone, anyway._

 _When he finally responded, his words were carefully chosen._

" _My brother…" he began, uncertain. "My brother was my father's son, and I could never live up to him. He was supposed to lead the clan into great things. All I can remember of my father is that he was disappointed in me for not being my brother. And then my brother killed everyone I had ever known."_

 _He paused to gather his thoughts. His father, his mother - he realized that he'd known Sakura longer than he'd known either of them. Sasuke had always felt frozen in time, in a way - always the eight-year-old son of Fugaku and Mikoto, never able to be any more than that, no matter what he had done. Always the second son in everything, and they never would be able to see any differently. They never had the chance._

" _My father valued duty, responsibility, and family above all else… he always told me that accepting help would be admitting weakness, not just for myself, but for all Uchiha. I had to do what they weren't able to do for themselves, and I had to do it alone. It was my clan, my brother, my responsibility. So I did my duty to my family, to my father, and I did it without dishonoring my clan. Without dishonoring my father."_

 _Sakura was silent, but he knew that she was listening. It was something that he had noticed when he had come home after the war - she had learned how to listen, and she no longer felt the need to respond to everything he said. She could let the air go unfilled, let some things go uncontested. He wondered when she had learned to do that. At some point between when he had left her on that godforsaken bench and when he had come home for good, she had grown up. So many things must have happened, so many things that turned her into what she had become while he wasn't looking. And he knew none of them._

" _Looking back… those ideas didn't do the Uchiha much good in the end, did they?" he sighed, staring at the stars twinkling against the dusky sky. "The time for the Uchiha to be great had passed. But they were all grasping at what had been, what could have been… and so was I."_

" _We've all been there," she said quietly. There was a thoughtfulness in her voice that told him that she understood exactly what he meant. "Wishing for the could-have-beens, I mean."_

 _He could feel that she was looking at him, but he kept his eyes on the stars. He didn't want to look at her face, not the way it was now. It unsettled him, gaunt and unfamiliar, but somehow more real than any photograph he had of her. It troubled him to see her that way, hungry and hard._

" _Your father would have been proud of you, if he knew you now," she said softly. "My papa… he was a different kind of man. He wasn't the head of any clan. He wasn't even a ninja. But he always said that if I was happy, then he was happy."_

" _Were you happy?" Sasuke asked, unable to stop himself. It was something he had wondered to himself many times before, when he couldn't sleep. Was she happy? Did she regret any of it, any of the choices she made to bring him home? Did she regret him?_

" _I think I was," she replied honestly. "With you and Naruto and Kakashi, I was happy. The three of you were my family, as much as my own parents. It was hard when you all left me behind, but then I found my own way, and I don't think I would have found it if the three of you had all stayed. And then when you were finally home after the war… I was so happy."_

" _You probably would have been happier as a civilian," Sasuke said frankly. It's the kind of thing that might have hurt her feelings to hear him say, but if she wanted honesty..._

 _Sakura shrugged. "I don't think so. Maybe I wasn't born to be a shinobi, like you and Naruto, but I wanted it anyway. I think I could have been pretty good at it, too, if I hadn't been stuck with the two of you. Hard to shine when you're standing between the sun and the moon."_

 _She paused, and a smile broke out on her lips, small and feeble. Like the first leaves of spring pushing through the snow, and just as fleeting._

" _I knew I was never going to change the world," she said. "But I knew that I could always help whoever was right in front of me."_

 _Sasuke glanced at her. He was surprised to find that her eyes were clear, no sign of the tears he would have expected from her. Just another sign that he was dreaming, he supposed._

 _Then she laughed. "Look at us, all grown up. A far cry from Kakashi's little genin brats, huh?"_

 _Sasuke smiled. "Some genin you were. You told him your goals were… what was it? Oh, right. You didn't have any."_

" _At least my goals were age appropriate. Didn't you say that you wanted to have a bunch of kids to rebuild your entire clan?"_

" _Huh?" he replied, unsure of what she was referring to. He recalled saying no such thing._

" _When we were twelve. You said that you had two goals: kill your brother and restore your clan. You killed Itachi, didn't you? So now, all that's left is restoring your clan."_

" _I don't think you understood what I meant," Sasuke said slowly as her meaning dawned on him._

" _No?" she asked. "It seems pretty straightforward."_

" _Restoring my clan was never about replacing it. I didn't mean I was going to breed a new clan," he explained. "As I said, the time for the Uchiha has passed, and nobody wants it to come back. Not even me."_

" _Then what did you mean by restore?" she asked, confused._

" _I wanted to restore the … honor, dignity, whatever it was that we had. Itachi killed my family, and took those things with him. He turned me into a nobody from a disgraced clan. The Uchiha name used to mean something. And I wanted that back."_

" _You weren't a nobody."_

" _If I was somebody, then it was just the little brother that wasn't even worth killing," he snorted mirthlessly._

" _Not to me."_

" _No," he agreed. "Never to you."_

 _She was silent for a long time. He turned to face her and found that she was staring at him. Her eyes were wet with tears that hadn't fallen yet, but she didn't look sad._

 _He sighed and reached for her, pulling her into him. She let him draw her in, burying her face in his neck. The skin there tingled and burned uncomfortably, but he didn't let go._

 _Suddenly, the scenery began to melt around them, and he found himself sitting on a stone bench. It was no longer nighttime – the sky was blue and clear, the afternoon sun blinding. Sakura was sitting next to him, and she looked as startled as he felt._

 _He knew exactly where they were, and he knew that she must recognize it too._

 _They were sitting the bench where he left her on the night he left the village, all those years ago. He remembered her soft hair splayed on the stone, her cheeks sticky with tears. The way she knew exactly what he was going to do, but wasn't fast enough to stop him._

 _She looked around, and realization dawned on her face. He wanted to ask her what she was seeing, if it was any different from the scene before him._

 _Sakura stood, turning to face him. The look in her eyes was unreadable, and her smile was sad and distant. "I guess this is fitting, isn't it?"_

" _What is?"_

" _That this is where I have to leave you." She held her hand out to him, and he took it. She pulled him up. "Where you left me. And now that I have my own path, it's my turn to go."_

" _I don't understand," Sasuke said._

" _But I do," she whispered. "I finally understand, now. And now it's time for me to move on. I can't stay in limbo like this."_

" _I don't want you to go," he said quietly, truthfully. It was a beautiful day; the birds were chirping, the grass was greener than he'd ever seen it, and the rustle of the trees in the breeze was nearly sedating in its serenity. He could have stayed there forever. Or at least for a while._

 _Sakura took his hand and raised it to her face; she pressed her cheek into his palm, squeezing her eyes shut - to stop her tears, he knew. "I don't want to go either. But you'll forget about this when you wake up."_

When I wake up?

" _Where are we?" he murmured, an uneasy possibility dawning on him. Something that he hadn't thought of since Kabuto's Edo Tensei._ Souls have to be kept somewhere _. "Why does this… why do you feel so real?"_

" _I keep trying to figure that out too," Sakura said softly. "Sometimes I think it's all in my head, but then you're here… so I guess the only answer is that it feels real because it is real."_

" _But you're dead," he whispered._

 _She pulled his hand away from her face and kissed his palm before letting it drop back to his side. The place where her lips touched his skin stung and prickled angrily; he closed his hand into a fist._

" _I have to go," Sakura said delicately. "I'm sorry we got it so wrong this time around. Maybe we'll get it right in the next life. Goodbye, Sasuke... and thank you."_

 _She pulled back and turned away from him, and began to walk down the long stone path that he knew lead out of the village._

 _He called after her, but she didn't turn around._

" _She can't hear you," a voice behind him said quietly, and he turned around._

 _A young girl stood before him – long pink hair, green eyes, red dress. It was her, but a much younger her - and much less corporeal. The edges of her figure glimmered and shifted, as if he was looking at her through a dirty window._

 _Sasuke, confused, turned back around to the pathway that Sakura had been walking down mere moments before. The pathway was gone, replaced with nothing but overgrown forest and mossy fallen logs. He looked back to the child. "Who are you?"_

 _The girl smiled, baring teeth that were sharpened to grotesque fangs, and her eyes flashed blood-red. "You love her."_

" _She's dead," Sasuke said bluntly as he began to disintegrate, his body turning to dust before his eyes._

" _Then keep your memories," the child hissed, and as his vision receded, he saw her skin peeling away reveal patches of gray fur and yellow eyes with slitted pupils. A pair of leathery wings began to rise out of her back, larger than any he'd ever seen before._

 _His vision went black._

When Sasuke awoke, he was tangled in the blankets of his own bed - outside, the sky was just beginning to brighten with the first rays of dawn. He blinked several times to clear the sleep from his eyes. His palm tingled where she had kissed him - he stretched his fingers out, trying to dissipate the pain.

It was a strange dream, even by his standards. It took a moment for reality to return with the dull, heavy memory that Sakura was gone - the conversation was nothing but a dream, no matter how real it felt. He stretched out his arm, deciding to enjoy the moments of quiet. Naruto had taken to the supremely annoying habit of breaking down his door at dawn every morning to haul Sasuke to the training grounds to spar. Sasuke did not regret the rekindling of their friendship, but he did sometimes wish that Naruto would catch some sort of semi-lethal plague every now and again.

As if on cue, a knocking on his front door started. He knew that if he didn't answer the door within seconds of the first knock, Naruto would start shouting. Sasuke's neighbors hated him enough as it was; he groaned and rolled out of bed.

This dream would be stowed away and hopefully, eventually, forgotten. Just like the rest.

 **..**

 **..**

 **..**

Sakura stopped at the village gates. She couldn't go any further; her knees were buckling, hands shaking, lungs gasping for breath. Tears were pricking at her eyes uncomfortably, threatening to spill down her face. She wiped at them angrily and glared up at the closed gates, placing her palms on the wood and pushing them with all of her might. They did not open.

"Damn it!" she shouted bitterly at the gates, slamming her fist against the doors. "What else? What else can there _possibly_ be!?"

Her voice broke as tears began to spill down her cheeks, hot and angry. She collapsed to her knees and pressed her forehead against the cool, solid wood of the massive gates, her fist still feebly pounding at the doors, willing them to open.

She did not think she could take any more.

She had left Sasuke behind, even though her heart had been screaming at her to stop, to turn around, to do anything but walk away from him _again_. The look in his eyes lingered in her mind - like a burned out fire, half embers and half ashes.

There were things about him that she herself had forgotten until he was right in front of her - a freckle on the lobe of his right ear, the exact color of his lips, his sigh.

And he was _real._

And he was going to forget her _again._

He had to, she knew. It would do no good - in fact, it would do immeasurable harm - for everything she had worked for to be dashed against the rocks now, for him to find out that she was alive via some _stupid_ secondhand forest magic.

It still hurt.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath to calm herself. She had to keep moving forward. Somewhere, somewhere inside of her, there was something that still needed to be faced. Otherwise, the gates would open… _right?_

"Ahem."

Sakura looked up. Her younger self had re-appeared and was standing above her, hands on her hips. The child had returned to her twelve year old state, long pink hair pulled back with an untested hitai-ate.

"You again," Sakura mumbled. She felt drained, depleted, and weary as the child looked down at her.

"Do you give up?" the girl asked sweetly. "Ready to call it quits?"

Sakura sighed and was still for a moment, gathering her scattered strength. Then she stood, brushing the dirt off of her knees, and took a deep breath. "Of course not."

"Are you sure? You look pretty… distressed."

"Well, I am distressed," Sakura huffed. "What _was_ that? And why… why am I still here?"

"I thought you'd be happy to see him," the girl sniffed. "And I told you, he wouldn't remember anything, so you could be honest with each other. It was a _gift._ "

"So that really… it was actually… that was really him? Not just part of some dream?" Sakura asked, feeling weak at the knees.

"Of course it was. What good would it do anyone if you couldn't actually talk to him?" the girl said, placing her hands on her hips. "You had to understand him before you could let go of the heartbreak he caused you, or you would never be able to channel natural energy without it getting mixed up in all of that grief. And it's not like you spilled the beans."

"Right," Sakura said faintly. _You had no right to bring him here… no right to jeopardize what I've sacrificed. No right to put me through that._

"Your thoughts aren't a secret here, you know," the child said cheerfully. "I had every right. Which brings us to the very last thing you need to understand before you can leave this place."

"Fine," Sakura said wiping the tears from her eyes angrily, preparing for yet another vestige of her past to appear before her. She wasn't sure how much more she could take, but she knew she couldn't back down now; she closed her eyes, ready. "Hit me."

"Haruno Sakura, who are you?"

She snapped her eyes open. The scenery hadn't changed – she was still at the gates of Konoha, still standing in front of her younger self. But the voice she heard was unmistakable. It was the voice that had taunted her, the familiar multi-hued timbre that had assaulted her from the darkness, when this horrible dream had first started.

The young Sakura smiled. "Shall I repeat myself?"

"You," Sakura whispered, the memories of the pain inflicted by the voice making her fearful. "You were never really me, were you? There was no Inner Sakura."

The child grinned, showing teeth that were honed into fangs with needle-like points. The voice that came out of her mouth was terrifying. "Of course not. So I ask you for the last time: who are you? Keep it brief; time grows short for you, and you are not done yet."

Sakura took a deep breath to calm herself before considering the question. She thought of what she had learned of herself - the fears and hopes she had seen, the life she had hoped to live and the one she dreaded was waiting for her. She thought of the love she had held onto and protected and had not fully understood until now, the home she had left behind in the hope of doing something greater. It was a long time before she spoke. "Someone with a long way to go."

"Yes," the child agreed, nodding.

"Someone who knows that isn't a bad thing," Sakura breathed. "You were right. There is a long journey ahead of me. But I'm not afraid of it like I once was. I've made it this far… and I know I can keep going."

"Then you have learned. You have arrived at the peace you were meant to find," the child said, seeming satisfied with her answer.

Sakura looked behind her at the village, where she had just gone through so many lifetimes and left behind so many things. She stared at it for a few long, wistful moments before turning back to the face the child. "Who are you?"

"You will find out soon enough," the child murmured. "The slugs are waiting to take you to me, and there you will find true power. You will find everything that you seek… but it will come at a price, of course."

"But I haven't got anything to offer," Sakura objected. "I have nothing to give."

The child's eyes focused on the seal between Sakura's brows for a moment. "Don't you?"

Sakura shifted uncomfortably. The child's eyes were hungry, starving, esurient. "What do you mean?"

The child waved a hand in the air, dismissing her question. "It's time for you to return to the forest. Your body has finished the purification rites, and it is waiting for you."

"Oh… right," Sakura said. She had momentarily forgotten that she was not _truly_ in Konoha, and that she soon had to return to her reality… and her body. "I forgot about that."

"You don't have to leave. You could stay right here. You could be home again," the girl murmured. "Forever."

Sakura stood still, gazing at everything around her that she had once loved so much. That she _still_ loved more than her heart could bear. The bright yellow paint on the buildings, the red rust on handrails, the sunshine, the trees, her friends, her life, her heart, her _home_. The sun warmed her skin gently; the rustle of the trees was the first and only lullaby she had ever known.

"No," Sakura murmured, placing one hand on the gates and pushing them open. "I think I'll stick with the life I've got."

When she finally emerged from that horrible little cave, she found that she was standing in the middle of the river. She was also cold, hungry, and tired. But she felt like a new person. Still the same, at heart, but somehow lighter, brighter, stronger. She felt connected to the water swirling around her, the sunlight peeking through the trees, the birds chirping. _Your chakra is scaring the birds away from us,_ she remembered the old slug saying on her first day in the forest _._ Sakura smiled. They certainly weren't scared anymore. She looked behind her, trying to peer through the waterfall, looking for the Konoha she had just left behind, and the tiny, pink-haired child that had stayed with it. Neither one was there.

"Are you looking for something?" a deep voice called, startling her. When she turned, she found another slug, this one the size of a house, peering at her from the shore.

"No," she called back, wading through the lazy waters. "Are you my next guide?"

Once back at the shore, Sakura stood face to face with the large slug. Maybe a house was exaggerating. A bus, perhaps.

"I am your next guide," the slug confirmed. "I have been charged with the maintenance of your physical training, although I am not the only one charged with this undertaking."

"Physical training?" Sakura asked, uneasy. Her stomach rumbled and her muscles ached; she massaged the back of her neck, groaning in pain. "I feel like I've been shoved inside of a shoebox."

"You were in the cave for a very long time. Nearly two weeks," the slug said, and if Sakura was not mistaken, there was concern in its deep, trundling voice. "A long time to leave the body untended."

Sakura looked down at her body. She had undoubtedly lost weight - weight she could hardly afford to lose - and her nails had grown long and untidy. Her clothes were soaked, dripping with cold water, and her skin was pale and sallow. She sighed - she hadn't thought to bring a change of clothes with her.

"I have brought with me the necessities that your species rely on. Human clothing and food," the slug said, using one of its giant eye stalks to gesture toward a package of supplies that sat on top of her pack, leaned against a tree.

Surprised, Sakura sorted through the pile of human clothes, holding up a pair of black mission-standard pants and matching shirt. "Where did you get all of this? Are there other humans here?"

"Katsuyu brought them for you when she returned from speaking to your leaders."

"Is Katsuyu here?" Sakura asked, peering around the massive slug, looking for her old friend. A familiar face - even if it was a slug face - would have been more than welcome.

"No. At this moment, Katsuyu is outside of the forest, acting on your behalf," the slug said vaguely.

"On my behalf," Sakura repeated slowly, not understanding. She was no diplomat or dignitary; she did not have the need for an emissary.

"It would appear that your… council, yes? And you call your chief a hokage? They have grown impatient. They made demands of your time that Katsuyu felt she was compelled to oblige."

Sakura frowned. "What sort of demands?"

"That your contract is contingent on your meeting of deadlines. Katsuyu, as your summon, felt that she was beholden to uphold any contracts that you may have entered into, and took the completion of your next mission on herself."

"Oh no," Sakura muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "No, no, no. I can't believe Kakashi would let her _do_ that. She must be so upset."

"Katsuyu rather enjoys the odd assassination every few decades. It's why she chooses to enter into human contracts. I would not be worried about her. And she has bought us several weeks to begin your training. If we begin immediately, we may make ample progress."

"Still. What a bunch of shitheads," Sakura grumbled, cracking her knuckles.

"Miss Sakura, please do remember you were supposed to leave your anger and resentment in the cave," the slug reminded her. "Such emotions will hinder your mastery of the sage arts."

"Sorry," Sakura said quickly. "I meant to say, uh, I wish they had not done that... sort of thing."

"They are rather insistent that you resume your duties right away," the slug said carefully. "Of course, we in Shikkotsu feel no need to adhere to their demands. However, we do feel it pertinent to pass on a message from the council. They simply would like to remind you of the consequences of shirking your duties and the importance of maintaining a strict schedule."

Sakura stiffened. An icy feeling crawled up her neck - she knew the implied threat in the message. She knew _exactly_ the consequences they were referring to, even if Sasuke's name had not been spoken aloud. _Shitheads,_ she repeated to herself. How was she supposed to gain any sort of ground when she only had three weeks in between missions?

As if it could read her thoughts, the slug cleared its throat. "It has been suggested that you intermittently leave the forest to complete whatever missions you must, and in between, you would return to Shikkotsu to continue your training."

"I can do that?" Sakura asked, surprised.

"You can come and go as you wish. The forest has accepted you," the slug said respectfully. "But you are not the new sage yet. There is someone for you to meet first."

"The first sage?" she asked hopefully, clasping her hands together.

"No, no. He is long dead. You humans don't live very long, which is why you don't make good pets."

"I wish you would just tell me who he was." Sakura squinted. She had her suspicions, but did not want to look stupid in front of the slug by being wrong.

"It is not my place to tell you."

"Who's place is it, then?"

"She who will decide if you may call yourself a sage or not. We go there now."

"She? You mean, like, the head slug, or whatever you guys call your leader. Slug-kage?"

"No. No, much more than that. The guardian of the forest. She is not a slug."

"The forest guardian decides if I can become a slug sage? Not the slugs?" Sakura said, becoming slightly irritated. She wondered what kind of forest had _politics._

The giant slug laughed, the sound coming from deep within its slug-belly and shaking a flurry of leaves off of the nearby trees. Sakura knew that something she said had been deeply amusing to the slug, but she didn't know what.

Finally, when it had finished laughing, the slug spoke in a wheezing voice. "There is no such thing as a slug sage, girl."

"Excuse me?" Sakura asked, startled. "I... I thought that I was here to become a-"

"A sage, yes," the slug interrupted her. "A slug sage, no. We are not so vain as the toads of Myoboku. We are the caretakers of the forest, and the healers of the realm, and as I said, we do not keep pets. You will not be a slug sage."

"What kind of a sage will I be, then? Just the Plain-Old-No-Frills Sage?" Sakura inquired.

"You will be the forest sage," the slug replied. "An age-old and well-storied standing that has not been held by a human in many decades. There is a temple at the center of the forest - the temple of the sages, we call it, but it has many other names. And there, you will meet the forest spirit, Baku."

"That sounds familiar."

"Yes, humans know well of Baku. Legend says that the gods created Baku with the spare pieces that were left over when they finished creating all other animals. The spirit spent many a millenium plaguing humans before settling here in the forest and giving it its name - _Shikkotsu_ means Damp Bone Forest."

"Are the legends true?"

"About the gods? Who knows. About plaguing humans? Most certainly. It's fun; you should try it sometime."

"The damp bones bit concerns me," Sakura said, peering at the mossy forest floor as if a fully-formed skeleton might jump out at her from the dirt. "Are you sure it's safe for me to meet this… Baku?"

"Yes. She isn't hungry right now," the slug said dryly.

Sakura squinted up at the giant slug. "I feel like you're making fun of me."

"It was a boring two weeks, waiting for you. Now, shall we make the journey towards the center of the forest? It's but a few hours from here, if you ride on my back. It will be faster that way." The slug proffered its tail for her to climb onto its flat, squishy back.

 _Fast slugs._ Sakura shook her head, hardly believing that her life could become any stranger. Too tired and sore to object, she clambered onto the soft fleshy body of the slug, and it began to nimbly navigate through the trees. Within minutes, she fell into a deep slumber for the first time since coming to the forest.

 **..**

 **..**

 **..**

* * *

A/N: Ugh, I have so much to say this time around!

Firstly, I have never watched the anime. I have only read the manga. If something happened in the anime that did not happen in the manga, i do not know about it.

This chapter was something I'd been wanting to write for a long time. I think it's important that Sakura and Sasuke start to understand each other a little bit. I think they have such deep-rooted misunderstandings of the things that motivate each other, which isn't fair to either of them!

Secondly: If you really like this story or you dig my writing (:D), then I have a new offering for you! I have new story called The Sun Goes With You, and the first chapter is up now. It was actually the story that kind of gave birth to Seek, and you'll definitely see some similarities in the first chapter, although the plot diverges pretty quickly after that. The Sun Goes With You has a lot of the same elements - post-war SasuSaku, heavy trauma, extended separation. It promises to be darker and creepier, but with more face time between Sakura and Sasuke, if you're missing that in this story. Also, the first five chapters are already written so I can promise at least some sort of regular update schedule!

As far as Seek goes, I know that things have strayed a little far from usual ninja bsns, and I promise we're getting back to that right away! No more strange dreamscapes.

This story has now been ongoing x 1 year - at least on AO3 - and what a fun time I have had. I would like to encourage you all to leave reviews and feedback of any kind, even if you are not usually the type to do that. It's so motivating and inspiring to me.

To the guest who left the kindest review stating that they always read but do not always review, amongst other fantastically nice things: I love you and appreciate you so much. What a lovely thing for you to have said to me!

And lastly: I do take one shot requests. Any character/pairing except sasuhina - or sasuke with anyone other than sakura tbh. I just can't vibe with that enough to write it well.


	12. the forest sage

_a/n: baku is a real japanese mythical creature, but i certainly took some design liberties with it and made it much bigger and more horrifying and Miyazaki-esque. This is fanfiction, after all._

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 **Seek: Chapter Twelve**

 **The Forest Sage**

" _Miss Sakura."_

"Huh?" Sakura asked, startled, and sat straight up, nearly decapitating herself on a low-hanging tree branch. She had fallen asleep on the great slug's back as it had carried her through the forest.

"Shh," the slug shushed her before continuing in whispered tones. "Wake up. We have arrived at the heart of Shikkotsu."

Sakura rubbed the sleep from her bleary eyes and peered at her surroundings from her perch on the slug's back. It was dark out - perhaps dusk had fallen, or perhaps - and more likely - the denser foliage did not allow much sunlight to filter through to the forest floor. The trees were thicker and closer together, allowing very little maneuvering space for the giant slug; the smell of moss and damp earth were overwhelming.

With a jolt, Sakura realized that she was surrounded by smoothly undulating, shapeless dark masses of all sizes that crowded the forest floor. _Slugs._ Hundreds of them - some even larger than her current guide, but most were only slightly larger than herself. They moved without purpose or rhythm, hordes of plasma and slime, and whispered amongst each other too quietly for her to make out the dim light did not allow her to see if Katsuyu was present.

"The temple of Shikkotsu is in front of you," the slug whispered, directing her attention straight ahead.

When Sakura's eyes finally adjusted to the shadowy, mottled light, she gasped.

Before her, the mass of slugs had parted to show a long, straight dirt path that led to a mammoth stone temple. The path was lined with roughly-hewn animal statues - slugs were the most heavily featured subject, but Sakura also recognized bears, wolves, cats, and boars, as well as many creatures she could not name.

The temple itself was an enormous affair; its true height was obscured by the trees that crowded around it. She could not think of a single larger structure that she had ever seen, with perhaps the exception of the gates surrounding Konoha; Sakura imagined that the edifice rose quite high above the forest based on its girth alone. The entire temple was constructed of gray stone, concealed with an overgrowth of vines - with the exception of the door, which was composed of glossy, rich wood.

If the temple was intimidating for its size, then the double doors were equally so for their intricacy. They were delicately carved - at this distance, Sakura could not make out the designs, except for what appeared to be two human handprints where one would expect handles to be.

"This is where sages are consecrated," the slug murmured. "Now close your mouth and come down from there. You look like a guileless fish. Or worse, a toad."

Sakura did as she was told and slid off the slug's back, to join the throng on the forest floor. The other slugs brushed up against her, their slimy skin brushing against hers uncomfortably, and pushed her forward towards the path; her guide followed closely behind her until they reached the first statue of the pathway.

" _Welcome,"_ the slugs whispered.

" _We have been waiting,"_ the slugs whispered.

" _Why is your hair pink,"_ the slugs whispered.

Sakura looked back to her guide and pointed toward the temple. "Is Baku in there?"

"Yes," the large slug said. "Baku is waiting for you inside of the temple. You will go in alone. If Baku finds you acceptable to be the new Forest Sage, then you will begin your training today, with me."

"And if I'm _not_ found acceptable?"

"Then we shall worry about that when the time comes."

Sakura rather thought that she should worry about it _now,_ as _when the time comes_ was often far too late to worry about such things. The slug obviously sensed her unease and pressed against her arm reassuringly.

"My child, you are quite young, that is true. But you are clever, kind, and unendingly loyal. There is a reason that I was tasked with carrying you to the temple."

"Because I probably would have gotten lost?" Sakura said, trying her best to sound lighthearted.

"Yes. And also because I am one of the keepers of the temple. None are allowed to enter without my assent, and I do not grant passage to those who are unworthy. You are worthy, and all of the slugs have gathered here today to offer our support… and our blessing."

The sea of slugs hummed in agreement and swayed in unison, jostling Sakura about like she was a raft afloat in a slimy ocean.

"But before you are allowed to walk the path, I must ask you a question. And before that, I will share some of your own history with you; your teacher, Tsunade, came here seeking power, just like you. But she was unable to separate her grief and resentment and sorrow from her soul any more than she could separate the stars from the sky. So she could not be accepted into the temple."

Sakura ran her fingers over the soft moss covering the stone statue before her. It was a boar, ugly tusks jutting from its rough-hewn jaw. She knew just how deeply rooted Tsunade's heartache was, and how deeply it was carved on her heart. Sakura wondered if Tsunade had once stood in front of this very temple, only to walk away empty-handed for the depth of her grief.

"Have you settled your soul, child?" the old slug asked gently.

"I've made peace with it," Sakura said quietly and honestly. She had confronted every demon her heart had caged. They might never leave her, but they were at rest, and that was the best that she could do.

"We can sense as much." The slug bowed its great head. "And because of that, we will allow you to proceed. You will walk down this path, and when you reach the temple, place your hands on the doors. Present your chakra to the temple, and if it is pure, you will be allowed to enter. You will find Baku is waiting for you there."

Sakura nodded and swallowed. "And you'll be out here, right? You'll be waiting for me?"

"Of course," the slug murmured. "I will be right here, regardless of the outcome. But now you must go, for Baku is an ancient and impatient creature."

The slug then nudged Sakura forward with its great head, and she stumbled a few steps further down the pathway. She turned back to glance at the slugs one last time.

"Go," her guide called out to her. "With our blessing."

So Sakura turned back around and slowly walked down the dirt path, glancing uneasily at the statues that flanked her way. They seemed… alive, somehow, their eyes following her as she walked. She shuddered.

When she reached the great stone doors, she paused. She pressed her palms into the carved hands and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply; then she allowed her chakra to flow out into the wood. It glowed green for a moment, and then the doors slowly creaked open.

With one last glance at the slugs gathered behind her, she entered the temple.

Immediately, the doors shut behind her, locking her inside. The inside of the temple was bare, damp, and poorly lit - the only light source a single small window situated far too high for her to reach. The drip of water echoed through the room, a grim and mournful chorus.

Sitting on a bed of moss crowded against the cold stone wall was the forest spirit. It was as large as a house, larger even.

It was not quite a wolf, nor a bear, nor an elk, but it had the ugliest attributes of all three. It had the head of a moose but the slitted eyes of a cat, with matted brown fur and fangs too numerous and too big for its grotesque muzzle poking haphazardly out of angry bleeding gums. Saliva frothed and dripped from its open maw. Antlers crowned its ugly head, and its ribs poked through its fur. Its cracked hooves alone were as large as Sakura's entire body. On the ridges of its spine sat a folded pair of tattered leathery wings.

"You do not find me pleasant to look at," the creature heaved, and its rancid, damp breath felt hot on her face. "You humans have forgotten me."

Sakura froze - she knew that voice, and knew it well. The voice of this… _thing_ was the same multi-timbre voice that had woven in and out of her nightmare in the cave. She would know it anywhere.

"Do you speak?" the creature growled. Its voice moved like a boulder being pushed uphill - slow, grating, pained. The sound of its labored breathing filled the room, echoing across the damp stone.

"I know you," Sakura said carefully, keeping her voice even. "I know your voice... It was you in the dream, wasn't it? You were the little girl."

"Indeed. I am Baku," the creature rumbled. "Baku, the dream-eater, they called me. For many millennia, that was the only name your kind knew me by… then I withdrew to this forest many centuries ago. It was I who visited you in your trance, I who rummaged through the deepest crevices of your mind… and I must say, you interest me, child."

"How so?" Sakura asked, not sure she wanted to be found interesting by a creature with fangs larger than her body.

"For someone so lacking in natural talent and skill to come here takes courage. I find that charming."

Sakura stiffened. That did not sound like acceptance to her - it sounded like the precursor to being eaten. She considered running, but decided against it - she wouldn't make it very far anyway.

"But you also possess a certain strength of spirit that reminds me much of the last boy who stumbled into my temple, seeking what you seek. Yes, you share many qualities with him indeed; I hear your people made him into something of a leader in the end. Annoying in every way, but teachable - like you. I made him into a serviceable sage in the end."

Sakura let out an imperceptible sigh of relief. Perhaps she would not be eaten after all, which was the best that she had hoped for. And - with any luck, Baku might even answer her burning question. "Who was he? The first forest sage?"

"Senju Hashirama, your people called him," Baku heaved. "I called him useless, which he learned to answer to eventually."

"Senju Hashirama _the first hokage?_ " Sakura asked, astonished.

"Was that his full name? A bit of a mouthful, if you ask me," Baku said distastefully.

"He founded my village," Sakura said quietly. "He was one of the most powerful shinobi to ever even _exist_. I didn't… I had no idea he…"

"What, he didn't tell you who taught him everything he knew? The ingrate. You will do no such thing, I hope."

"Of course not," Sakura breathed, the implication of Baku's behest not lost on her.

"Haruno Sakura," Baku said, as if savoring every letter of her name. "She who would become the second forest sage. You are very similar to him indeed. I recognize your soul - I thought you were Hashirama, when you first appeared in Shikkotsu. But the winds tell me that his soul is elsewhere. So I wonder, who have you been that once was one of mine?"

"I wouldn't know," Sakura said honestly. "I think I've only ever been me."

"Impossible, but no matter. I will remember eventually. Sit, so that we may talk business." Baku motioned with its fanged muzzle toward the stone floor.  
Sakura sat as she had been taught by her first slug guide, crossing her legs and placing her hands on her knees, palms facing upward.

"I shan't waste time. I do not like humans," Baku hissed. "You had no right to change the earth as you did, to steal the homes of the plants and animals that came before you and were defenseless against your gifts. The earth will rid itself of you someday. But until then… we must _coexist._ "

Sakura bit her lip and swallowed nervously, eyeing Baku's large, glistening fangs. "By coexist, you mean…?"

"I am not some gentle nature spirit that your people like to romanticize. I am older than you can imagine. Death does not bother me. Killing does not bother me. You humans are so fleeting; who am I to care if one of you gets snuffed out a few seconds before you are due."

Baku lowered her great head until she was inches from Sakura's face. The creature's fetid breath grazed her skin, and Sakura's spine stiffened, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end - still, she stood her ground.

"But that is for another time," Baku said, withdrawing. "Your time is not now, and it is not for me to decide. You belong to the forest now."

"Does that mean...?" Sakura said breathlessly, staring up at Baku's hideous face.

"It means nothing but that the forest likes you, and the forest has been wrong before," Baku hissed. "As for myself... After examining your thoughts and mind, I chose to give you a gift. While your body was sitting in the cave, I made a… modification… to your tenketsu. I made them receptive to natural energy. Those stupid toads lack the skill and resort to melding their bodies with their humans… repulsive."

"Thank you very much," Sakura said respectfully, her stomach still churning nervously.

"The world is stretched very thin, child," Baku hummed. "And it gets thinner every passing day. And when the madness within bursts forth - and it will, sooner than you think - humans will be on the warpath… it would be _advantageous_ for Shikkotsu to have an ally amongst them."

"Of course," Sakura murmured.

"You and I would enter into a contract. Much like you have with the slugs now; when you are in danger, I would come. And when the forest is threatened… it is you who would come to us, then."

"You mean _you_ would be my new summon?

"No, I'd be your new master who might deign to rescue you when you inevitably get in over your head."

"Oh."

"I do not like humans," Baku growled. "But human chakra is a valuable resource. It has different… proclivities that are unmatched in other species."

Sakura shifted uneasily, her hand itching to touch the seal on her forehead.

"Human chakra can create. Other species can augment or destroy, heal or execute; when mixed with natural energy, these abilities are simply enhanced. But humans… humans alone can create, when exposed to the correct conditions."

"I've heard that before," Sakura said, remembering Academy lessons that taught the uses of ninken or other summoned animals. "Human tenketsu are structured differently, in a way allows chakra to build upon itself to facilitate physical bonds."

"And just like all chakra capabilities… combined with natural energy, that ability is amplified. And combined with natural energy from Shikkotsu specifically, and your nature release, the constitution of your creations takes a certain… root."

"I have earth release," Sakura supplied. "And water release, but it's a bit weak. I had to learn it for my jonin promotion."

"That is good news, then. I had expected to have to teach you one or the other, since you will require both as a forest sage."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked, starting to feel a bit lost.

"When you combine your human chakra, with its power to create, with your earth release and your water release… and then you add natural energy, what do you assume you gain the ability to create? Earth release, water release, and nature combine to form…?"

"Holy shit," Sakura breathed, the implication of Baku's words dawning on her.

"No. Wood release," Baku said, clearly confused by her statement. "Why would it be… never mind. It's wood release."

"Mokuton is a sage art," Sakura said, amazed. "Hashirama's wood style. It came from you… from Shikkotsu."

"Of course it did," scoffed Baku. Sakura would have sworn that the creature sounded amused, if a thousand tortured voices could sound amused. "You think that boy just invented it on his own?"

"I never really knew," Sakura admitted, too excited to be chagrined. "I think we all just figured he was born with it or something."

Baku huffed, as if offended by the lack of credit. "Treacherous boy. Too interested in combing his hair, if you ask me. Now, onward… if you wish to become what Hashirama once was, then an exchange must be made."

"An exchange?" Sakura frowned. "I haven't got anything to exchange."

"As I said, human chakra is a precious resource," Baku growled, eyes flitting to the seal on Sakura's brow. "A resource that you have in spades."

 _I don't like the sound of that,_ Sakura thought. "My natural chakra reserves are pretty small."

"The chakra stored in your seal would be enough for Shikkotsu to flourish for over a year. Many trees could grow… the perimeter of the forest could expand by a league or more in any direction. And the fauna, as well, would thrive. Many young could be nurtured into adulthood."

Sakura was silent.

"And in exchange for your generous gift… I can only imagine the forest would meet you with similar generosity."

"Meaning?" Sakura asked carefully.

"The power that Hashirama had was only a fraction of what he could have been given."

"Oh," Sakura said softly. Hashirama was one of the most powerful shinobi… ever, she thought numbly.

"And wood release is not the only power that Shikkotsu could grant you. If you were to return every now and then with fresh chakra to put forward, it might be inclined to share such arcane abilities with you. And of course, your chakra would return to you as quickly as it always does."

Sakura didn't really feel inclined towards messing with _arcane_ powers. She felt that she was already in far over her head, that she was getting far more than she had bargained for. This giant fanged moose-wolf-bear-cat _thing_ wanted all of her chakra… for what? A few trees? But in exchange for the kind of security that wood release would offer… Sakura thought she might be an idiot to turn that down. And she didn't consider herself an idiot. She remembered the kinds of things that were waiting for her outside of the forest…. this would certainly even the playing field.

"So, will you accept? Your chakra stores for unparalleled strength?"

For a moment, the only sound was the steady _dripdripdrip_ of the water from the great stone walls while Sakura found her voice.

"I accept."

"Then you will be the new forest sage," Baku affirmed, and planted one giant hoof in the dirt with a thud.

Where Baku planted its hoof, the ground erupted in an outburst of flora; small vines began creeping up its leg, and wildflowers blossomed in the new grass. The vines began reaching for Sakura, twisting through her fingers and up her arms.

She allowed the vines to tug at her chakra; the sensation was bare but intoxicating, leaving her feeling dreamy and delirious. The vines grew warm and began to emit a delicate golden glow as they wrapped around her, fragile viridian tendrils climbing up her arms and neck. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation.

Sakura felt the vines moving her body, lifting her arm and pulling on her chakra in an unfamiliar manner - the way the chakra coiled and swirled through her hands was foreign to her but pleasant, and so simple that she wondered why she had never thought herself to manipulate it that way. It was warm, like submerging her arm into a hot bath; she let herself sink further and further into the warmth, willing the feeling to deepen and spread across her entire body-

"Stop, child. You will break my temple," Baku growled.

The sound of Baku's voice startled her, and the feeling escaped - the vines began to retreat, slithering down her skin and back into the dirt.

Sakura opened her eyes and gasped. In front of her was standing a tree - and not just any tree. Clouds of pink blossoms dotted the branches and pink petals swirled through the air to the ground.

She staggered against the stone wall beside her, suddenly overcome with fatigue, as if all of her chakra had been drained from her at once. The vines receded from her limbs, crawling back across the earthen floor to Baku's hooves. She touched the symbol on her forehead - her seal was empty, completely bereft of the chakra she had been storing away since the end of the war.

"They have extracted their price," Baku murmured. "And they like you."

Sakura stared up at the tree in awe, head spinning dangerously. "Did I grow that? Was that me?"

"It was," Baku confirmed, dipping her giant head. "And I hope you remember how you did it. I don't want to have to teach it to you again."

"I think so," Sakura said wearily. "All of my chakra is gone."

"The slugs were going to beat it out of you anyway. It's better to train with your chakra stores depleted. You will grow stronger faster without it."

 _Fucking slugs._

"Did you mean to grow a cherry tree?"

"No." Sakura had grown too fatigued for answers any longer than a few words. She placed a hand on the bark. The tree felt warm, like it had been basking in the sun, and it was strong and solid under her palm. She ran her fingers down the wood softly.

"You have power and fear in spades, child, and if you can control both then I might make a good sage out of you yet."

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

 _ **..**_

Two weeks after Sasuke's strange dream, he was struggling to forget it, although not for lack of trying.

While he had not had any other dreams of the same magnitude, since that night his dreams had changed slightly. Most notably - and amongst other, less significant dreams - two nights ago he had fallen asleep and spent the whole night walking through a densely wooded forest. He'd come upon a river that he'd followed until he reached a small waterfall, and behind the waterfall was a cave with calf-deep cold water, and inside the cave he could hear faint, mumbling voices that were far too quiet to be intelligible.

Of course, what Sasuke did not know was that the forest was Shikkotsu, the cave was really the Rocks of Rumination - where Sakura had quite recently sat in a trance for two weeks - and the voices were not, in fact, unintelligible, he just wasn't really listening. To Sasuke, he'd had a dream about some weird trees and a weird cave, and since nobody died and there was no blood, he counted that as a victory and did not think about it too much.

And he wasn't thinking about it now.

He was lying in the grass of an empty training ground, his one arm carelessly flung outward, as he stared blankly at the clouds that were drifting against the baby-blue sky.

It was a beautiful day. A gentle, warm breeze was whispering through the grass and over the treetops. A ladybug crawled over his finger and settled on his fingernail.

Exhausting himself with training had proven ineffective in stopping his racing thoughts. Once upon a time, that had been a successful tactic, when rage was the emotion that he was trying to silence and he had a goal that he pursued with a single-minded fury.

Now he had nothing but his memories, and he found they were not so easily vanquished.

 _Hard to shine when you're standing between the sun and the moon._

In his dream - the big one, the one where Sakura had been there - her hands had been warm and soft. Different from how he'd known them to be, when he'd come home for good. Her hands were always so dry, cracked from washing her hands so often at the hospital. She used a hand cream that smelled like jasmine; when he'd been in her apartment a few weeks ago, he'd picked it up and held it in his hands and thought he might actually throw it through her bedroom wall in frustration and anger. Then he'd put it back carefully, although he didn't know why - it's not like she could care that he had moved her lotion.

Once they started, memories were hard to stop.

 _The first time Sakura fell asleep in Sasuke's apartment, it was on his couch - ruined by Naruto also being asleep on his couch at the same time. Sasuke had passed out on his armchair that was too soft. It had been a long night for all them - Sakura and Naruto had decided that something needed to be celebrated, and had dragged Sasuke across town to find which bar had the best peach sake. The two of them had declared it a fourteen-way tie and Sasuke's apartment had been the closest when they decided the night was over. Sasuke had been remarkably sober, but decided he wouldn't make them walk home that night. When he woke, soft yellow light was filtering in through the blinds that he'd been too tired to close when they got back._

 _Across the coffee table, Naruto started groaning. Sasuke closed his eyes - it was too early for a conversation._

" _Shit," Naruto sputtered. Sasuke opened his eyelids just enough to see Naruto sitting up and rubbing his eyes._

" _Hey, kid. Wake up," Naruto said quietly, poking Sakura on the shoulder. A sleepy hand batted his fingers away. "You're gonna be late for work."_

 _She grumbled something incoherent and pushed his hand away._

" _C'mon, Sakura. Up and at 'em."_

" _Don't wanna hear it," she mumbled, burying her head in her arms. "Lemme sleep s'more."_

" _Don't make me do it," Naruto warned, cracking his knuckles, and she groaned again._

" _I'm up, I'm up," she sighed, sitting. "What time is it?"_

" _Almost nine. You gotta go."_

" _Why do we always make such bad decisions?"_

" _It's not a bad decision for me. Not like I gotta be at the hospital. Want me to walk you to work?"_

 _She stood and gathers her hair into a ponytail. It still looks like she slept on a couch that she didn't mean to sleep on. "It's okay, you go back to sleep."_

" _What time are you off?"_

 _She shrugged. "Won't be later than 7."_

" _I'll come by and walk you home if you want."_

Sasuke shook his head to dispel the memory. He didn't _ask_ for any of this. He stood and brushed off his pants; the afternoon hours would be ending soon.

He walked home and thought about making dinner, but decided against it. He'd been home for less than an hour when Naruto let himself in.

"You're supposed to knock," Sasuke grumbled.

"Why? You're my reincarnated brother. What's yours is mine," Naruto said cheerfully, flopping down on Sasuke's couch.

"No. What's mine is mine, period," Sasuke muttered.

"Anyway, there's a reason I came over. Choji is having a thing tonight and I think you should come. Shikamaru is going to be there."

"No. No _way._ "

"Yes way."

He knew he was going to regret letting Naruto into his living room for the fifteenth time in a month - he'd had a bad feeling. "I'm not going to a party."

"It's not a party!" Naruto said, exasperated. "Shikamaru said he wants to talk to us and it's just a bunch of people you already know at Choji's house. Like, ten people tops. People you went to school with, you don't have to be so antisocial all the time!"

"Sounds like a party to me," Sasuke grumbled, wishing once again that he had both of his arms so he could cross them. "Can't we just meet in the library or something?"

"And have a bunch of village employees overhear us? No way. Listen, everyone will be nice and buzzed, no one will be paying attention to us, and Shikamaru can tell us what he wants to tell us, and then you can come back here to your creepy apartment."

"It's not creepy."

"It's so creepy. You have, like, one lamp and a mattress in your room."

"That's not creepy. It's efficient."

"You are so weird. Anyway, come on. Don't you want to get to the bottom of things?"

And so Sasuke went to a party, not without his fair share of grumbling.

Almost immediately after arriving at Choji's house, Naruto abandoned Sasuke (with a direct order to socialize), as he felt the inexplicable need to shout with Kiba over things that didn't need to be shouted over.

After catching several surprised glances turned into averted eyes, Sasuke settled for leaning against a table and watching the party - and it _was_ definitely a party - go on around him. _This was a horrible idea_.

And of course—because this was just how his life always worked out—it got worse. Ino found him and let out a surprised exclamation of _Sasuke, what are you doing here?_

He could tell from her voice that she'd already had her fair share of alcohol. He could also tell she could hold it just fine.

"Y'know, none of us here hate you," Ino said, leaning back against the table.

"Uh. Thanks, I guess," Sasuke said uncomfortably.

"You think we do, but we don't. Especially me and Shikamaru and Choji, we get it, mostly. We've all got big clans, big families... and after my dad died, I wanted to do evil things to the people that killed him. I can't imagine if it was my whole family."

Ino took a swig of whatever was in the cup she was holding, and Sasuke forced himself not to raise his eyebrows. He had been told that it looked… judgmental when he did that.

"And then we all learned the truth, about your brother and Danzo and all that. You still did a lot of fucked up shit, and that wasn't cool. Like, really not cool - you hurt all of us, somehow."

"I, uh… I'm sorry," Sasuke apologized, and although he meant it, he wasn't sure if Ino was really looking for an apology, or just looking to hear herself talk.

"So, just... you don't have to stay away from us just because Sakura's gone, okay? You're still one of us. She wasn't your only bridge off the island. You just have to show up."

For a moment they were both silent before Ino spoke again.

"But if you betray Konoha again... I know we couldn't bring you in the first time. But nobody will be trying to bring you home alive the second time around."

"Well... thank you, I guess?" Sasuke said again, still unsure if he was supposed to respond or not.

She patted him affectionately on the arm, and he stared after her as she sashayed away. Naruto sidled up to him, drink in hand.

"I caught the tail end of that," Naruto snickered.

"Eavesdropping is rude."

"Making me chase after your stupid ass for two years was rude," Naruto said, scandalized. "I'm allowed to eavesdrop on your conversations. It's how you make it up to me."

"I didn't ask you to do that," Sasuke grumbled. "Where's Shikamaru?"

"Upstairs, waiting for us. Let's go."

* * *

 _a/n: I wonder Baku the dream eater is up to with Sasuke... and what Shikamaru is planning! I included some fluffy bits just because I like writing them. Also, obv Hashirama was super powerful, Baku just has a bad attitude. Hope y'all enjoyed the new update._ _I'd say this story is about 1/3 of the way complete._ _It's my birthday in two days and I'll be officially elderly so who knows when I'll kick the bucket now, y'know?_


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